Severance
by WasWoksa
Summary: Probe TV Series/Austin James is no longer affiliated with his company and Mickey Castle is out a job. Could it be over a murdered gardener and genetically modified squash, or is there something deeper driving Austin away? A tale of love and loss, trust and sacrifice, and the problem with making inaccurate assumptions.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note:** Not many were fortunate enough to have seen the short-lived TV show starring Parker Stevenson and Ashley Crow in 1988 called Probe. And if you don't know it, you can still see it, mercilessly butchered but still fairly watchable, on Youtube. If you like my writing style, read this one, even if you don't know Probe. I think it's by far my most polished work.

 **A couple of shout-outs:** Reviewer "Ronda", you get credit for instigating this one. A single well-timed review can serve as a great motivator. I thank you. And to Parker Stevenson, whom I had the great pleasure to meet personally in 2015 in Chicago, you breathed life into Austin James through acting, and inspired me to breathe life into him through writing. You'll always be more Austin James than Frank Hardy in my imagination.

 **Disclaimers:** This is a work of fanfiction. I make no profit off of it. Included in this fiction are references, scenes, and some direct quotes from episodes of Probe, which were not written by me. Beyond this, the ideas and non-canon characters are products of my own imagination and any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

 _Severance_

 _by WasWoksa_

Chapter 1

Mickey Castle dodged the flow of departing business people, quick stepping left, now right, banking sharply and turning to the side, as she navigated the main outer vestibule of Serendip. It was late afternoon, quitting time for the bulk of those corporate members who punched a time card, and Mickey was forging against the tide.

She had left Austin some twenty minutes ago, rather guiltily to be honest. Not that she was cutting out early—actually, historically speaking, there was no such thing as early. A workday for Austin could be an hour or two or a day or three, just depending on wherever his fancy took the two of them.

But she had left in a rather rushed way, with an appointment to keep. The disconcerting part of this particular errand was how it was so shrouded in secrecy. She took the call from Serendip's executive director, Graham McKinley, a short time after lunch. He had first inquired after Austin, as would be expected. Austin wasn't available, which was par whether he was physically present or not. One of Mickey's prime duties as his personal assistant was to run interference with the Serendip executive body for him. This time, he truly was not present. He had taken his battered, wood-paneled station wagon out not long after Mickey had arrived for the day, left her to eat the midday meal alone, and wasn't due back for probably another hour.

All that was unusual thus far was his going out alone. Typically, Mickey was invited along, to drive, if nothing else. Today, he had needed "to think." And apparently, whatever thinking he had in mind didn't need company.

The intrusive notion broke Mickey's stride as she progressed through the late afternoon foot traffic in the building, earning her a check to the backside from somebody's swinging tote bag passing swiftly on her left. She frowned, bit her lip, and continued forward, more slowly.

Austin was always thinking. He was thinking and fidgeting, and was unable to sit still five minutes together. He had made it known that certain factors more readily facilitated effective thinking for him—diagrams, for instance, and models, and complex classical music compositions. But for the past several days, Austin's ponderings had taken on a more solitary and silent character than Mickey was used to seeing from him. He hadn't even paged her once over the weekend, a rare phenomenon as long as she'd known him. She knew he was preoccupied. Austin wasn't accustomed to losing, and last Thursday, he had had to declare defeat on a pursuit he'd held dear.

Mickey didn't think he had even really known the man. It was a death, a homicide, brought to their attention by Austin's quirky police medical examiner friend, Miles Smanovitch. The dead man, one Edgar Johnson, was a Serendip groundskeeper who had been found by his grown son in the backyard shed at his rural home, shot once in the head. It had been a neat job, no theft, no ransacking, no shell casings left behind. It was a contract killing, as far as the police could tell, and wholly unrelated to Austin except for the memory of a single conversation that he'd had with the man three weeks prior. They had discussed a problem Edgar had recently discovered concerning his side interest, cultivating hybrid squash, and had parted ways with Austin leaving him his card, in case his new acquaintance had any further developments to report. Austin had taken a keen interest in the apparent Serendip connection, but referred the man to federal regulatory authorities rather than get involved in any direct way.

At the time, Mickey hadn't thought much of it. It was a random encounter, something that quickly faded into the nebulous past, unremarkable. And then the man had turned up dead, assassinated, still carrying Austin's card in his hip pocket, and the case landed right in Austin's fervid hands. Viewing his presumed negligence as unpardonable, he atoned himself by now pursuing the matter with disproportionate zeal. It was pure Austin James: obsessive, relentless, and nothing but trouble.

Mickey hesitated for just a moment at the bank of elevators before choosing to traipse up the stairs instead. She was less eager to reach her destination with every step.

During their earlier phone conversation, upon learning that Austin was not in earshot, Graham had readily made known to Mickey that his real purpose in calling was to speak to her. He requested to meet with her at his office this very day at the close of regular business hours. He asked her to come alone; to please not invite Austin to the interview. Not that it was any nasty, dark secret, he had assured Mickey in his formal, Australian-tinged vernacular. But it was a matter of some import that Graham thought best not to trouble Austin over, seeing as the matter was more relevant to his secretary anyway. Mickey's heart sank. It didn't sound good.

So come five 'o' clock, Mickey had abruptly announced her intention to depart, and to her chagrin, her determined science sleuth of a boss didn't even press for much explaining. He had just stopped tinkering with the assortment of flasks and solutions and papers spread out in front of him on his expansive laboratory table, peered up, his unruly hair dangling awkwardly over his forehead, and quirked a small smile.

"Going straight home?" he'd asked.

Mickey glanced down before answering him. "Not straight home. No." She looked back up from under her thatch of curly ash blond bangs. "I have a stop to make first, on the way. Shouldn't take long, I hope." She frowned, thinking. "Not too long." Then she'd plastered on a smile. "See you tomorrow?"

For the first time since Thursday, his distractedness receded and his blue eyes softened at her. He smiled faintly. "G'night, Mick."

At the door to the third floor executive anteroom, she stopped altogether. The room was expansive, intended to awe. The granite support beams and polished marble walls rose to unnecessary heights in a vaulted ceiling laced with indirect lighting fixtures. Both the wall and the double doors into the suite were glass, and through it Mickey could see between the assorted potted palms the remaining personnel pool had thinned considerably. Less than a handful of secretaries sat hunched over their desks or hitched to their telephones in that room, putting in their overtime. One of them was posted at the door of Graham McKinley, executive director. That particular woman would be the mistress of the secretary minions, the executive assistant. Mickey pressed her lips together, hiked her purse up higher on her shoulder, and pulled open the door.

The faint squeak of rotating hinges coupled with the flash of light reflecting off the door's glass panes caused Graham's chief secretary to look up from whatever was keeping her late and acknowledge Mickey with a stern nod.

"Hello, Jean," she said with utmost politeness and a smile. "Graham asked to see me?"

The woman, whom Mickey had known now for a full year and had spoken to directly on a number of occasions, answered with all the warmth of bag of frozen peas. In a tone lodged between indifferent and impatient, she answered, "Have a seat, Miss Castle. Mr. McKinley is with clients." She immediately picked her phone up off the cradle and turned away.

Mickey backed away from her and swept an appraising look over the room. Of the three other women present, none was interested enough in her being there to look up, let alone make eye contact and speak. This must be a grim business, handling the affairs of the office of the company's executive director—nothing like handling the activities of its president. She finally lowered herself into one of the leather lounge chairs near the outside windows, folded her arms over her purse on her lap, and took up waiting. It was a tedious business, encompassing all of forty-eight minutes, making her doubt the wisdom of hurrying to get there. The three minions had already left for the day by the time Graham's office door came ajar and three smart dressed businessmen filed out. Then Graham was standing in the doorway as well, his eyes meeting hers, and he beckoned her to come.

No sooner did she cross the threshold into his office, and Graham was ushering her further inside with an overwrought smile and many apologies for making her wait. He briskly pushed the door closed behind her and returned to the chair set behind the broad mahogany desk littered with myriad papers, file folders, and stacks of ledgers on alternating white and pale green lines. "I do thank you for coming so promptly, Miss Castle. This last appointment wasn't expected. Please come in and take a seat." Then he sat, and Mickey pulled back one of the two chairs arranged directly in front of the desk and carefully perched on the edge of it.

"And how are you all holding up at the bat cave?" Graham began casually, with a light chuckle that sounded more like a painfully unnatural cough.

Mickey caught herself frowning at him and corrected that with an equally unconvinced smile. "Um, holding up? Just fine, I guess. It's been kind of quiet. Well, since the party, anyway." Of course Graham would begin with small talk. He was a rather formulaic diplomat. But the tension the man was emitting today was oppressive, and it wasn't lifting any with Mickey's reference to last Thursday's directors' banquet at the McKinley home, the most likely precursor to this meeting. With growing trepidation, she waited for him to get to what was really on his mind.

"I see you've been with us for over a year now, Miss Castle," he was saying, his hands steepled in front of him on top of a file folder, her employee folder, perhaps? That hardly seemed fair. Austin was the one who raised the ruckus Thursday night. "Fourteen months, if I'm not mistaken." The secretary nodded absently, eying the folder and still waiting for the meat of the matter to surface. "You know, that's a special record for Austin. No one else has been able to tolerate him for more than a week or two, at best."

"And vice versa," she heard herself answer in a low voice. It was almost a knee-jerk reaction to criticism of the man. She had become rather skilled in deflecting it.

Graham had the decency to look sheepish. He'd heard her well enough. "Well," he said. Then he shook off the awkwardness and continued with more vigor. "The point is you have certainly shown both me and the board outstanding service, both for Austin James and for the good of the company. I want you to know that Serendip, its board, its officers, and myself, do thank you for all that you do."

At some point during his statement, trepidation had turned to impatience and Mickey now released a long breath as she severed her grip on her purse strap and deposited it between her feet with a soft thump. "Am I in some sort of trouble? Is this where you hand me a pink slip or something?"

"You? No! Of course not." Graham pulled backwards a notch, a scowl on his face. "And I've said everything in my power to assure you to the contrary."

In her lap, Mickey cupped her hands over her kneecaps. "I'm sorry, but it sounds to me like you're giving me some sort of send-off, and I still don't even know why you called me over here, or why you wanted me and not Austin. I can't imagine anything that we could discuss that wouldn't directly relate to him, or that I'd give an answer to without consulting him first. I just wish you'd tell me what I'm doing here."

He was bobbing his head at her, finally cutting in as she stopped to draw a breath. "Yes, yes. Well, that's just the point. We're standing in the gap, figuratively speaking…" He hesitated, pushed back from the desk a little on swiveling casters. "The truth of the matter is, I—that is, Serendip, as a whole—"

"Whatever it is, _he_ ought to be here. I'm just a secretary. He's the president of the company!"

" _Was_ ," Graham corrected, sharply. "He was the president. And I don't see what his being here now would accomplish." He paused to throw a glance up toward the angular, Roman-numeraled wall clock hanging to his right. His expression darkened, and he muttered, "As of fifty minutes ago, Serendip has no president."

Mickey sucked in a breath, tried to speak, and failed. Her mouth hung open, but nothing came out, nothing coherent. Suddenly, her vision was tunneling, until she let out the breath she didn't realize she was holding. And in that swollen moment of horrified stupor, Graham McKinley, apparently oblivious to her distress, continued talking.

"I don't relish telling the board about it in the morning, not to mention the shareholders. But never mind all that. As I was saying, the status of Austin James in relation to Serendip will not in any way jeopardize your employment with us, your pension, or your other accrued benefits. I would like to say we could maintain your pay grade as well, and certainly you will be first in line for consideration for the next executive assistant vacancy, but unfortunately, at present—"

Shock turned instantly to white hot fury, and Mickey leapt to her feet, her uncastered chair legs squealing noisily against the polished marble floor. "How could you!?" she hissed. She even stomped her foot once, for good measure. "Just because he doesn't fit into your neat little box of proper presidential behavior, because he digs into problems wherever he finds them, whether they're on the agenda or not—" The tone of her voice was rising substantially in both volume and tempo, even as she snatched her purse up off the floor and clutched it in front of her. "After everything he's done for you—he might have saved your life once, do you remember that? And you still thought he was crazy, just some mad scientist living like some comic book character out of his own little fantasy land…a bat cave. Well, you were wrong. Austin James is brilliant _and_ he's sane, and you've been luckier than you'll ever know just to be able to claim his name to this dump, let alone—"

If Graham had been attempting to quell the flood of her vehemence, she hadn't noticed until his hand was splayed across his face, his elbow propped on the desk, and he nudged his voice one more notch above hers to shout, "Nobody fired him!"

"Huh?" She slowly backed into the chair and sat again.

"He wasn't let go, Miss Castle. He quit, all on his own. He came in today expressly for the purpose of resigning Serendip. All his ties here are severed, effective end of the day. His words, not mine." His head cocked slightly and he looked puzzled. "He didn't tell you?"

Rendered speechless once again, she merely shook her head.

* * *

Not quite two hours after Mickey arrived for her appointment, she left Serendip in the blaze of ruddy twilight. She settled back into her small blue sedan and retraced her steps under the glow of newly illumined streetlights back in the direction of her wayward boss and his warehouse abode. It was the logical next step. She needed to hear it from Austin himself; _Effective end of the day._ She had little doubt Graham McKinley's admission was in earnest, but the reality of the situation, that Austin was, in fact, no longer her boss, simply wasn't penetrating her brain.

She might have predicted this was coming, had she paid better attention. The signs were there: Austin's stony reaction Thursday night to being told by Graham and others on the executive board to drop his nosing into Serendip's genetics division under pain of restraining order, his suddenly remote behavior the next day, the strangely tidy appearance of the warehouse Monday morning. And yet, as she numbly attended to the mechanics of driving and to a route she could practically trace blindfolded, a small and fanciful part of her still wanted to find Austin as baffled as she, denying the whole thing as a crazy joke of the cosmos.

But the larger, more pragmatic part, the part that wasn't still paralyzed in shock and denial, understood that Austin had just changed his course, and had spun hers out of orbit, careening off into the great unknown. Just as he had assured her the day they met, he was sponsoring the greatest adventure of her life. Except this time, he would not be a part of it.

A chapter of her life was ending, and much too soon. Just when she had gotten comfortable with the situation, just when she had become, well, attached, it was gone. She was on her own again. Sort of. Well, anyway, she was relegated to living out of the back bedroom of her mother's house indefinitely. She was without a job, canned, unemployed. Okay, not exactly. Graham had put an offer out there, should she agree to accept it. She could enter the secretarial pool at a lower rate of pay, or she could take a severance package and leave. It didn't have to be the end of her employment, certainly not of her income. She might not be Austin's secretary, but she remained an employee of Serendip. Sure, it was a demotion, but at least she might have a normal, structured work life with clear start and stop times, weekends off, and defined tasks, like filing and making phone calls. No more breaking and entering, or getting tied up or beat up or run down, threatened, cajoled, challenged...No more crazy, mind-bending, heart-pounding escapades.

No more Austin.

She blinked back an unwelcome seepage welling up around her eyeballs and scowled at herself. If he was walking away from all his Serendip ties, even his own unsuspecting secretary—no, friend. Close friend—well, he could at least be prevailed upon to tell her himself. What were his last words to her today?

"G'night, Mick."

He hadn't even had the decency to warn her, to explain, to say goodbye.

The seepage spilled over the confines of her eyelids. "Darn it," she muttered, fishing in her jacket pocket for a tissue as she navigated the turn into the warehouse lot one-handed. She pulled into her usual place alongside the building and sat, dabbing her eyes for a moment, composing herself. It would never do, to present herself to him emotionally unhinged. Besides, he deserved a chance to explain himself. Better he do it after the fact than not at all. She got out of the car in the still nighttime air, trudged up to the warehouse door and punched in the five-digit door code she knew as well as her own birthdate.

Nothing. The number panel flashed red a few times, but there was no familiar click and the door remained unresponsive. She stared at it. Surely he didn't... He wouldn't. She pressed in the code again, very slowly.

Still nothing. The flashing red lights mocked her momentarily.

"Austin!" she yelled at the disobliging door. Then she banged on it twice, in tandem with his first and last name. "Austin!" _bang,_ "James!" _bang._ The door was metal and banging rather hurt, so she stopped short of a third pass. Riding a wave of growing indignation, she shouted his name into the night one more time before another thought occurred to her. She turned around suddenly, facing the empty lot, searching it with her eyes. There was the usual assortment of wood pallets leaning against the warehouse wall next to the main service dock. The permanent dumpster was just visible around the corner at the rear of the building. But the lot itself was empty. Aside from her own car, no other vehicle populated the property, definitely no battered, wood-paneled station wagon. He wasn't even home. He was gone and he locked her out.

Sorrow and outrage united to launch one last assault against the detestable metal door, and with no regard whatsoever for the personal consequences, she dealt it an impassioned kick. That hurt considerably worse than pounding with her fist, and she had an entirely different reason to cry as she limped back to her car.

* * *

Three hours later, she finally steered into the driveway of the modest ranch home she shared with her mother. She had left the emergency room at College Central Hospital with her non-displaced fractured right foot in a boot, necessitating the use of her left foot for the gas and brake. In her hand, she clutched the slingback of her right shoe, a prescription bottle of pain pills and discharge instructions advising her to rest, ice, and elevate the foot, and follow up with the orthopedist in six weeks.

She limped up the driveway to the front door, ready for nothing more ambitious than swallowing a couple of those pills, exchanging her work clothes for an oversized nightshirt, and collapsing into bed.

Beverly Castle was there to catch the door as Mickey opened it, and Mickey grimaced at the look of weary concern etched into her fair features. "Michelle, you know I don't like to be that way, but _where were you_?"

"Sorry, Mom."

"I hate it when you do that. How hard is it to drop a quick phone call? That's all. You don't even have to tell me where you are or when you'll be back. Just tell me you're alive and—What in the world happened to your foot?!"

Suddenly, a firm grip had Mickey under her arm and she was being manually steered out of the foyer and into the living room. Beverly had caught up Mickey's purse off her shoulder and plunked it down beside the couch. She waited expectantly, eyes on the couch to prompt movement that direction. But right there, Mickey resisted sitting. "I'm okay."

"Sit."

"Mom, really, I'm—"

The older woman drew herself more upright and the creases around her mouth deepened. "Sit down," she ordered firmly, "prop up that leg, and tell me what happened."

"I'm okay, Mom. Really." Mickey nestled herself down on one end of the couch. It wasn't worth the energy required to argue. "It was just a dumb accident—"

"You were in an accident?" Beverly tossed a worried look over her shoulder toward the front picture window. "Well, is the car okay?"

"Mom," Mickey groaned, twisting to her right so she could hoist her immobilizer boot onto the couch. "Not that kind of accident. I ki—uh, kind of caught my foot on a door. It was a dumb mistake; I did it to myself. And it's been a really lousy day. I don't even want to talk about it." She sighed and leaned back against the brocade fabric of the couch, closing her eyes. "I just want to go to bed. Can we please wait until tomorrow and I'll tell you all about it then?"

"Don't you have to work tomorrow?"

Mickey's eyes stayed shut. "I don't think so," she said softly.

"Well, I suppose you wouldn't," Beverly continued, unfazed. She ran a hand through her mop of short, curly hair. "I don't know where you ended up, but your boss, Austin James, came over. He waited for you."

Mickey's heart felt like it suddenly stopped cold. Her eyes snapped open, and she searched for her voice while her mother blithely continued her report.

"He stayed for supper, but not dessert. Eventually, he had to stop waiting. I guess he's left on some kind of business trip tonight. Isn't that strange? I usually assume when you're late it's because you're with him. Now I don't know what to think."

While she was still talking, Mickey turned and used both hands to lower her injured leg back down to the floor. Then she levered herself back up on her feet and stood there, listing a little. "He was here, here at this house?"

Beverly nodded, frowning worriedly. "He said he paged you, but you didn't call. Didn't you get the page?"

She didn't. She couldn't. Her pager had been left on the desk of Graham McKinley at Serendip when she found out Austin had unceremoniously ditched her. Her head was beginning to throb almost as badly as her broken foot. She massaged her temples with the hand cradling her face.

"Oh, honey, I'm so sorry. I'm sure he'll call you when he gets back and you'll get this whole thing straightened out." Mickey felt a reassuring grip around her shoulder that failed to make her feel any better. "Are you sure you're okay? You really should go lie down. Can I get you something?"

She could imagine no better idea than lying down. Maybe after a couple of those painkillers and a solid night's sleep, she might wake up better suited to deal with the fallout of today. "Just give me a hand, here, Mom. I want to go to bed."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

He had pondered this deeply and frequently, and no matter which of the corroborating factors he chose to input or omit, however he elected to approach it, rationalize it, or dismiss it, with every empirical strategy he applied to extrapolate the truth, he invariably reached the same conclusion. This was entirely Graham's fault.

Austin James had simply been carrying about the business of making himself useful, which on one fateful afternoon in the last days of a particularly balmy March, brought him on a rare foray through the marble, granite, and palm treed caverns of the Serendip compound.

The proximal reason for the visit was moot, irrelevant so many weeks later. He had come, he had acquired the information for which he had come, and he had almost safely departed the third floor offices without anyone snagging him aside to trouble him with whatever they couldn't seem to handle without him. Emphasis here was "almost."

Then, there was Graham, hanging at his elbow, pattering on about the president's duties and responsibilities and answering calls instead of directing his secretary to farm them out on other executives, etcetera ad nauseam. Austin had little difficulty drowning out the droning with the force of self-distraction, but that day, one phrase had intruded deep enough to slow Austin's pace toward the elevator.

"I don't know what would possess someone to believe a field of acorn squash could be a supernatural phenomenon, but the man wouldn't stop calling and pestering until I agreed to hear him, and I suppose he does have a right, as an employee. You have to give them credit for taking initiative or no one will report anything, even when you want it reported."

Austin stopped abruptly, a sharpness appearing suddenly in eyes that had previously been set stubbornly ahead and decidedly elsewhere. "Acorn squash?"

Graham turned on his heel to face his companion, who was now a step and a half behind him. He shrugged, smiled wryly, appearing somewhere between apologetic and dismissive. "Ordinarily I wouldn't think to trouble even you with a complaint from buildings and grounds, but this was such a peculiar assertion, of course I thought of you."

"Of course," Austin muttered, throwing a flicker of an eye roll ceilingward and continuing his forward progress. He stabbed the down button on the elevator panel and then turned again toward Graham, waiting for further explanation with slightly more interest than in the opening of the elevator door.

"The gentleman is a groundskeeper; he mows the lawn and trims our hedges, and for reasons unknown he is absolutely convinced that there is a…" Here, Graham hesitated, embarrassed even to speak the complainant's words lest he appear to own them. He glanced to either side and continued in a slightly sotto voice. "He called it 'the cure to world hunger.' He said it grows mature squash in less than a month, and they are larger and more prolific than anything that has ever been seen. I had Sykes ask about it at the eastside plot, but he didn't find a thing out of the ordinary."

Austin didn't reply, but his level gaze and lack of further forward propulsion, even when the elevator opened, exchanged a few passengers, and then closed again without them, invited further elucidation.

Graham seized the opportunity and rushed on, more confident. "He said he's been cultivating plants in his home garden for years, and he's never seen such an aggressive vine as this particular squash. He says you have to actively kill it; it resists every environmental threat. Carl Sykes over in genetics did respond to him, eventually." Graham cleared his throat and looked down momentarily. "Well, not that we take corporate compliance lightly, but I'm sure you understand what with the demands on a division director, and none of the field research technicians could make sense of what Mr. Johnson was talking about… Anyway, the precursory look showed nothing—the whole thing sounded preposterous, so—"

Austin's intent look was joined by a tight smile. "You thought of me."

Now Graham was smiling a little cheekily. "Who else?"

* * *

By the time he had parted ways with Graham and reached the main entrance, he found Mickey had been there long enough to have given up on waiting for him in the fire lane and parked. More precisely, he observed her sitting on the flagstone ledge bordering the outdoor reflection pool with one leg crossed ankle over thigh and her long skirt hanging in pleated folds all around her. She was twisted sideways to face the pool and its collection of fountains as she placidly tossed in a coin near the end point of one arc of spouting water. Management might discourage the practice, but it would take a direct order to keep the young woman from exercising her right to engage in the harmless superstition of wish-making on small U.S. coinage in corporate fountains. Austin had no intention of wasting good-will on any such order. The dimming late afternoon sun highlighted the more golden tones in her shoulder-length curls and bathed her face in a soft glow, a rather picturesque effect. He paused long enough to commit the scene to memory before striding up to her and giving her shoulder a quick double-tap.

She startled and looked up at him, smiling. "You're late," she declared, sounding triumphant.

"What did you wish for?"

She lowered her leg and stretched the both of them together before launching herself to her feet. "Italian for dinner tonight."

He stared at her. Sometimes he had to stare a moment before he answered her, because so often her responses were so impossibly simple or unexpected or outlandish, he found himself feeling like he must be missing something. "Why appeal to the magic fountain? Why not just say, 'Austin, let's get Italian?'"

She giggled and moved past him, keys in hand, heading toward the parking lot. "Alright then; Austin, let's get Italian."

"Hold up," he ordered, taking hold of her under her arm before she got too far. "I need to go somewhere first." He let go and charged ahead purposefully, opposite the lot, assuming she'd follow along and not really considering otherwise.

She trotted along and caught up to him quick enough. "Where?"

"Back nine," he quipped. Her face only registered confusion, so he relented and elaborated. "The topiary garden out back; I need to see someone."

They hadn't wandered too far down the mossy paths amongst elaborately sculpted bay laurel, box, and yew trees before Austin caught site of a tall, wiry, brown-skinned man of about fifty in faded jeans and work shirt, snipping with pruning shears at what looked like a lollipop of leaves rising out of the ground on a narrow stalk. Austin stopped at a respectable distance, within the man's peripheral view, folded his arms and waited to be noticed. It didn't take long.

The man finished the branch toward which he was tending, then closed the shears and stuffed them in a pouch in his leather tool belt. He inhaled long and deep, and then slowly turned his head toward Austin and lifted his chin. His face was bland, calm, deeply creased and leathered from many hours spent in the sun. His wide-set eyes were almost black and his lips were set in a thin, straight line.

Austin nodded once before speaking. "Edgar Johnson? I'm Austin James."

The man's expression didn't even twitch, but his eyes brightened some. "You're that crazy one, the one they talk about," he replied in a full baritone voice. He held up a hand and waved it vaguely toward the Serendip building behind him. "You own the place." He nodded consideringly. "So they sent you. Don't know if I ought to be flattered or insulted."

Mickey frowned. It was less than an appreciative reception, but a sidelong glance told her Austin wasn't taking offense. "The squash," he pressed on, seeming to share a mutual understanding with the man as to which particular squash they were speaking. "Where is it, and what is it doing?"

"It takes over the land. Wherever it's planted, it grows. Nothing else grows, just squash."

"It's a vine," Austin countered. "Vines monopolize the land where they grow."

Edgar Johnson's brow furrowed further, if it were possible. "Do they kill the bugs, too?"

Austin straightened. "It kills the bugs?"

"Whatever eats it—the leaves, the flowers. It kills them. And it makes giant fruit."

"How giant?"

The groundskeeper began to fidget with his belt. He looked off some point distant from them. "It's not the usual fruit. It's more the size of cantaloupe. And it grows ten, twelve squash per vine. And it only takes four weeks, from planting to harvest." His gaze shifted to take in Austin directly. "Four weeks," he repeated. "It spreads quick, takes over everything. It's like ivy, or creeping Charlie, but it's squash. Never saw anything like it. Have you?"

Austin shook his head. "I want to see it. Where is it growing?"

In response, the man slipped his shears back into his hand and strode three trees farther. He began inspecting a spiral cut yew, wielding his shears as he took hold of a twig of overgrowth. "Can't tell you that," he muttered, not looking up.

Austin blinked. "Why not?"

The older man glanced up once, but didn't stop his work. "It's mine; I grew it. I'm not telling where it is. I just want to know whether Serendip is interested in it."

The conversation was taking a turn toward exasperating, as evidenced by Austin's brief temple rub and more erect posture. He frowned, thought a moment while observing the recalcitrant man's pruning effort, and finally spoke in his clipped tone he reserved for pronouncing conclusions, usually with no regard for propriety or finesse. "If it really was yours, you wouldn't have to go out of your way to claim ownership of it. The truth is, you stole it," he said, and immediately earned the groundskeeper's attention and a glower. "You took genetic test material from the eastside plot, applied it to your home garden, and ended up with an aggressive weed that makes oversized squash. What did you want from Serendip, gratitude and a windfall?" Austin half turned and gave Mickey a nod. Still speaking for Edgar's benefit, he muttered, "Or maybe you'd take overlooking your blatant disregard for scientific property and letting you keep your job here." Then he advanced back up the path toward the building, casting a sidelong glance at Mickey as he passed her and adding decisively, "Italian!"

Mickey deftly caught up with his quick strides again, but they hadn't gone far when Edgar's deep voice called sharply from a distance close enough that he must have decided to follow after them. Austin stopped and turned around. He raised an eyebrow.

"I won't lie, Mr. James," Edgar said hurriedly, "You're right; I hoped someone would buy it. But this isn't just a weed I'm talking about. I harvest it, I plant some more, and a week later it's growing again. At the rate it's going, I might get four plantings in one season. And every planting, the vine spreads farther." His eyes flicked from Austin to Mickey and back again. "I burned it a couple of weeks ago, when it wouldn't stay back. But the seeds already in the dirt started growing again, even after that, and it's still spreading and leaving squash everywhere. It's like it's got nothing stopping it—not heat, disease, lack of water, nothing. I'm sorry I stole. I didn't think it would do any harm. I like to grow squash, play around with the flowers; see what comes up." He looked up at the expanse of clear blue sky above, as if searching the heavens for an answer. He abandoned the effort and returned his gaze to Austin. "I don't know what Serendip is growing, and I don't think it's my business. But whatever I have, it's growing like it has a mind of its own in my garden. I can't get rid of it short of burning it. I just thought someone else ought to know."

His ire forgotten, Austin rubbed his chin and then raised a finger in the air as though physically ordering his thoughts before him. He doled out his orders at a pace as rapid as his walking had been moments before. "Call it to the Food and Drug Administration. They'll be interested in your plant strain more than your indiscretion. Take my card." He fished one out of the breast pocket of his pinstriped oxford and handed it to Edgar. "Call me when you get more information. I'd like to hear how this turns out."

That was the sum and entirety of Austin's dealings with Edgar Johnson. He never received a call from the man, only one from reliable old Miles with the sheriff's police about three weeks later. Edgar was found shot dead in the shed at the back of his remote property out in the eastern hills. According to the police and fire authorities, it was determined that he had started an open bonfire in a clearing in the woods adjacent to his own property and it was burning at the time he met his demise.

* * *

Never had it been Austin's intention to lose track of Mickey in the confusion of the day he quit Serendip. Truly, the whole notion of having someone around to keep track of was a novel one to him. Delving back to his roots, it was hard to determine whether he had evolved into a solitary person by virtue of a low need for relationship or a high difficulty in establishing one. Most likely, it was equal parts of both. The end result was the same. He had spent his life thus far avoiding any such personal entanglements, and he couldn't say it bothered him. But that ended with Mickey. Mickey was special, mostly because she was the single human being of his acquaintance who consistently defied categorization.

She hadn't been gone long, not ten minutes, when he set aside the amino acid chain study he'd devoted his afternoon toward and returned to his other pressing business, the project he only worked on when his secretary was absent. His current project, his central focus, was about to be put in motion, and he had to be ready in all spheres.

From the storage room at the rear of the building, he hauled out several large sheets of cardboard, rotated and turned them end over end until he had assembled them into corrugated boxes, and reinforced the bottoms with strips of packing tape. He went back again and pulled out bags of foam peanuts and a roll of industrial sized bubble wrap. Then he systematically went about the business of reducing the sprawling accumulation of electronic instruments and devices, works in progress, and general clutter into compactly organized boxes sealed, stacked, and ready for pickup.

Even a week ago, he would have bristled at the idea of liquidating the warehouse contents and selling off his shares in his company. But today, he was determined there was no better option. It wasn't the end of the world. He had built his company and his warehouse into what they were today in the space of five years. At the age of thirty-three, and his health sound, he had no doubt he'd live to build another empire. Maybe there was a twinge of regret, hiding out in the blind spot of his mind, but he absolutely refused to examine it. Now was the time for decision, not doubt.

He had spent almost every moment since the night of Graham's party packing up for this move. Every moment Mickey was away, he worked. He didn't fully understand why he had kept it from her; only that it seemed vital that she not know. Maybe because she'd have a lot of questions, a lot of doubts. She might talk him out of it.

He grimaced. That last thought stung a little.

He fully intended to tell her. He had to; she deserved a chance to part with him on honest terms, even if it made no manifest difference in the ending of their work relationship. He just didn't want to inform her until it could be presented as a fait accompli. He had left out the more visible clutter just for that purpose. She rarely had a reason to venture into the rear, less used loading dock area, where the bulk of his belongings were already standing.

In less than two hours, his lab table was dismantled, the desks were cleared out, and even the knickknacks were stowed away, leaving the place looking much more cavernous, much more deserted than ever. The last task to perform was to deactivate his voice recognition system and stow away the parts, immediately after changing the door code to the one he'd provided Graham today. After all, this building was soon to become just one more of Serendip's holdings. It was no longer home. The moving company he'd contracted was due to consign everything belonging to Austin James to a storage facility in the morning.

The glare of afternoon was being swallowed up by the velvet pinks and violets of encroaching sunset when he left the warehouse for the last time. Bent under the bulk of the last items to accompany him away from there, he trudged after his lengthening shadow out to the station wagon. It was already loaded from floor mats to sagging headliner with the belongings he thought he'd find most useful and least practical to replace. Into the front passenger side, he piled in a duffle of toiletries and a couple of garment bags bulging with his clothing. The job accomplished, he stood for a moment, hands braced on the doorframe of the car, squinting toward the impending sunset. He had a long drive to make, and he wanted to start on it soon, but he had one more task before him.

At this time, Mickey must have already received the news from Graham McKinley. He dropped into his seat and started up the vehicle. Before he shifted into drive, he dialed her pager; might as well head her off before she got too worked up. He pulled out onto the street, debated heading immediately for the northbound interstate, and mentally vetoed the plan. He shook his head and smiled wryly. Before Mickey crashed his universe, he never would have fallen prey to sentimentality. He pointed the car toward the sunset. He would make one more stop before he was gone. He owed his secretary—his friend—that much.

* * *

And if there was one thing upon which he could depend about this friend, it was her utter unpredictability. He knew she would go home. Even if she did decide to console herself after the turbulence of the latter part of the day over a fermented barley concoction at a local watering hole, she would have come home first. It was a perfectly rational assumption, he thought. Or maybe he thought wrong. It was the behavior of Mickey Castle he was postulating; anything could happen.

The visit hadn't been a total loss. Beverly was a pleasantly neurotic woman whose contribution to the quirkier aspects of her daughter was plainly evident. She served him a delicious meatloaf and then invited him to be a dear and help her clean up the kitchen, and take out the garbage before he left.

If Austin had expressed some concern about what might be keeping Mickey away, Beverly willfully dismissed her absence. Her frequent glances at the digital clock on the microwave and the occasional wringing of her hands spoke otherwise, but she wasn't going to admit anything to Austin that she didn't want to seriously consider herself. "If there was ever a girl made to take care of herself," Beverly declared with a wink, "that would be Michelle. Did you know she lived on her own out in Alabama for six years before she came back here to help me when I was laid up last year?"

Austin confirmed she had told him as much.

Beverly smiled conspiratorially as she rose from stacking plates on the bottom row of the dishwasher. "I'll bet she didn't tell you what she did to her last boss, though." Her most recent boss's raised eyebrow was enough encouragement for her mother to elaborate. "She punched him," she announced proudly.

Austin smiled. "Was that the one who thought she could do her job better naked?"

Beverly grew grim. "That's the one. The pig," she spat. "He thought if he could get her alone in his office and hold some money and maybe a little intimidation over her head, he could get somewhere with her. That didn't go so well." She nodded in agreement with Austin's look of disgust. "Another girl might slap his face. Michelle punched him in the bread basket." She rubbed her abdomen above the navel for emphasis. "Knocked the wind out of him, even. And then," she said with vigor, "she quit." She turned back to the dishwasher, pushed the lower rack closed with her foot and then used the same foot to lift the door up to her waiting hand to complete the job. "That sealed her fate in that town, though. She worked for a very powerful man out there, a politician with a lot of friends. It should have been a terrific opportunity for her."

Austin nodded slowly, considering her words. "And then it was over."

"That's right. She wasn't going to find anything to match that income; she sure couldn't use that employer for a reference, so she broke her lease before the debt got out of hand. By then I was in the hospital being scheduled for surgery so she drove back here, figuring it wasn't worth it to find another job only to immediately leave on a family emergency." She shook herself out of her moment of regret to attend to the more pedestrian concerns. "Do you want dessert? I have some cake. I could make coffee." She stole another anxious look at the clock.

"No thanks. I'll have to leave soon." He and Mickey's mother looked at each other for a protracted moment, until he added, "I'm sure she won't be much longer." He realized he'd already decided he could hold off on the drive for a few more minutes. He opened the previous conversation again. "So she never went back to Alabama."

Beverly smiled sadly. "I ended up with a lot of bills." She lowered her eyes and frowned to herself. "A lot of bills," she repeated emphatically. "Michelle didn't have any money coming in yet, and no references to get her into a good office, so she sold her car to carry us over until she did find something." She looked up again at Austin and her cheerfulness returned as suddenly as the sun breaking through clouds after a storm. "And then she walked into Serendip one morning and just asked at the desk whether they were hiring. And then she met you. Isn't that just...serendipity?"

He stayed an hour and a half, total, and despite the satiating meal and the pleasant conversation with Beverly Castle, he left feeling perturbed. He had hoped to speak to Mickey directly before leaving town. As it was, he was forced to leave this facet of the plan open to chance. After all, Mickey could be counted on to surprise, and under the present circumstances, that could prove detrimental to Austin's carefully crafted agenda. Apart from the operational concerns, he couldn't deny he was nursing a bit of a guilty conscience. After the year she'd already given him, and everything that came before, he would have liked to have thought he could leave things between them less slipshod than this.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Tuesday morning dawned and Mickey reached for the phone, dialed the Serendip switchboard, and called in sick. Then she sat awake for a while wondering to whom the absence would be reported. She fell back asleep shortly after concluding she really didn't care.

At 8:30, her mother rapped lightly on the door before pushing it slowly open. "I'm leaving for work," she announced, standing in the doorway and waiting for a response. "How's your foot this morning?"

Mickey abandoned the idea of feigning sleep and groggily rolled onto her arm and looked up at Beverly. "Foot's okay. Head's foggy." She was surprised how thick her voice sounded as she spoke. Her mouth felt pasty.

Beverly smiled sadly at her. "I feel like I should stay home with you."

"Mom, no, you can go. It's just the pain pill. It knocks me out."

Not sufficiently mollified, her mother entered fully into the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Oh, Michelle," she said in a commiserating sort of way. She pulled Mickey's tangled curls back from her face and sat there silently for a minute, just idly twisting her hair in a ponytail at the back of her head. Then she let go of it and sighed. "What happened yesterday? It must have been something big if you broke your foot and I had dinner with the great Austin James." She smiled to herself before continuing. "Did you and Austin have some kind of disagreement? You don't usually run off and leave him wondering where you are. You two have been pretty good at looking after each other."

Mickey couldn't stop a smile from rising up and bubbling into a short laugh. "You make it sound like we're married, Mom. I'm just his assistant. We do have separate lives, you know."

"His work wife, maybe," Beverly asserted with a glint in her eye, derailing any descent into melancholy Mickey might have been contemplating with the thought of separate lives.

"Not even close. Stop it."

"Not that there's anything wrong with that. You're both young, single—"

"Mom!"

"—attractive. Why not?"

"Oh, please, get me another pain pill. Knock me out!" Mickey pulled herself upright and dropped her legs over the side of the bed, sitting shoulder to shoulder with the older woman, who currently was near doubled over in laughter. Mickey couldn't help but laugh in spite of herself. "I told you he sleeps in a tool chest, didn't I? What kind of marriage do you think that would make?"

Beverly sighed deeply, giggled once more, and attempted to reply with a straight face. "A crowded one, I imagine."

"Is this your warped way of trying to make me feel better?" Mickey bent down to open the Velcro straps on her immobilizer boot so she could scratch her itchy ankle. In between straps, she nudged Beverly once with an elbow. "Get your mind out of the gutter."

Beverly sobered. "I will, but in all seriousness, what happened yesterday, besides the broken foot?"

Mickey retightened the last strap and sat upright again. Her deep blue-gray eyes were troubled. "I don't know, Mom. I lost my job."

"What?! Why?"

"He quit the company. He just up and quit, in the middle of the day, and he never even told me. And I can still work for Serendip, but it will just be a file room clerk or receptionist or something. You don't even need a college degree for that. My pay's going to go down about half, and I doubt I'll move up again. The executive director and the board just barely tolerated Austin. Why would they want to put his personal secretary back in an executive position, the one person who actually understands the way he thinks and still likes him?" She shook her head and looked down at her hands, tightly clasped in her lap. "I'm probably just as crazy as he is by now, spending all that time with him."

While she was still speaking, Beverly suddenly rose to her feet and crossed the room back to the doorway. "Michelle, he left you something. I almost forgot. Hold on." She darted out of the room and returned just moments later with a plain, white, business-sized envelope. Bringing it to Mickey and setting it in her outstretched hand, she added, "He said it would explain everything you needed to know for today. At the time, I thought he meant he had instructions for you while he was out of town, but now…"

Mickey hurriedly ripped open the flap and extracted a lined notecard from the envelope. In Austin's tight, boxy script was printed a single word, "Severance." She stared at it, mentally argued with it, and stared some more.

"What does it say?"

Mickey stood up slowly, closed her eyes briefly, and finally reached for her bathrobe. "I need to get ready. I'm going in to Serendip today."

"He wants you to go to work?"

She frowned. "He wants me to quit."

* * *

In the end, she went to Serendip only to submit a letter of resignation to Graham McKinley at the desk of his ever-aloof secretary. Anticipating his being too busy to be seen by a drop-in, Mickey included in her letter an invitation to call her at home should he need her signature on any parting documents. She made the effective date immediate, which seemed fitting in light of Austin's waiver of advance notice.

Making the decision to actually resign hadn't been as easy as she had initially expected. Doubt crept in while she sat parked on the street across from Austin's warehouse, chewing on an apple from home and watching a crew of workmen evacuate the contents of his former residence into a semi-trailer. The finality of it hit her then, and for a short time, she considered staying on at Serendip just to spite him.

That lasted only long enough for her to reach the parking lot at Serendip, when she acknowledged this wouldn't have been her current destination had she absolutely decided against resigning the organization. She was stuck in indecision, sitting in that lot. And thinking about finding another job led to thinking about finding her last one, and she remembered that first day, when she and Austin saved the city, unbeknownst to any of its dwellers, from a mad AI program that had taken over city utilities.

She had been so angry with him at the end of it. She'd spent the better part of forty-eight consecutive hours faithfully taking dictation for him on a series of legal notepads, her arm in a cast, only to have him tell her after it was all over to throw them out; he had perfect recall and didn't need them. His response to her ire was void of anything that resembled remorse.

"It got you involved," he countered with a shrug. "You needed that." And then, with those eyes that could register a focus worthy of an electron microscope, he added, "Life's a problem for you."

He had called her out on her insecurities, and when she responded in kind, he was genuinely pleased with her, not threatened. In fact, he seemed delighted to find somebody who was able to pin him down, to get what kind of human being he was, even if she was still far from appreciating the singularity of having that understanding.

That day marked the beginning of a new way of being for her, one that called for greater engagement, greater endurance, greater ingenuity, and most of all, greater willingness to let go of the reasons why and just act. He let her into his world and on some level, it was like her life began.

So she resigned from Serendip, not because Austin James left her, but because Austin James knew she was capable of greater things than sitting behind a desk answering phones and fetching coffee. He wasn't issuing an order; he was inviting her to forge a new path, to embrace what her next life might be. He was offering her a severance from the things that would hold her bound.

Three days later, her optimism had plummeted. She was updating her résumé and starting to clip out employment opportunities from the daily newspaper. There had still been no word from Austin, leaving her to understand that he truly did leave and might never return. The idea was depressing her more than she cared to admit.

The phone rang in the middle of the morning, while she was considering whether to fill out applications or go for a jog, and it was Graham McKinley's secretary, Jean.

"Mr. McKinley would like to see you. How soon can you come?"

Mickey's eyes widened in surprise. "He wants me to come there?"

"As soon as possible, yes. Please come right away, if you can."

She didn't rush, remembering the last time he'd invited her for an appointment. But this time, her caution was unnecessary. Graham must have been watching for her because he met her halfway between the elevators and the glass doors of the third floor executive suite. "Miss Castle, follow me, please." He turned and motioned in the direction of the offices, where he was already headed.

She was more curious than concerned. She'd already quit, what else could he do to her? She followed him all the way to his office, and when he opened the door, she saw the room was already occupied by one other person. She should have been concerned, after all.

"You!" the tall, silver-templed man dressed in a tailored pinstriped suit barked when he saw her and rose abruptly to his feet. "You know what he took with him. Where is it?"

"Ah," she said, finding no other words to accompany the sound. She turned to Graham for assistance, but he had only sunk heavily into his chair and ran a hand nervously into the graying blond hair at the nape of his neck. She looked again at the other man, whom she immediately recognized as the director of the genetics division, Carl Sykes. If his regard for her was anything like his regard for Austin right now, she might have been justified in hobbling right out of there on her immobilizer boot before the shooting started.

He was glowering, and refusing to be seated. "You know he was in my office," he accused, pacing a few steps and pointing a finger at her. "You know he was looking through my files."

She glowered back. "No, Mr. Sykes. I don't actually know what you're talking about."

He turned his attention to the executive director. "McKinley, Austin James stole intellectual property from my office. I know he did. That is a criminal act. If he profits off that material I could have him arrested, not to mention sued. I told you he and his secretary were here just last week, nosing around and asking about my projects. That man has been obsessed with me. And now I hear he's gone and signed on with that upstart genetics firm in Chicago, and now she's resigned, too. This isn't suspicious to you?"

Mickey's mouth fell open.

"Carl," Graham sighed, dropping his hand back down on his desk. "Do you have any reason to think Austin took a file of yours aside from his coming to your office last week?" He turned his eyes to Mickey. "Miss Castle, to the best of your knowledge, did Austin take any papers from the genetics office when you were there with him?"

Mickey shook her head. "No. No, he just asked him some questions."

"What kind of questions?"

"About Edgar Johnson, about his death, and he asked a—"

"He asked about old genetics work I did prior to Serendip," Sykes interrupted impatiently, "just like he was doing again Thursday. And now one of my archive accounts from that period of time is missing. Who else would take it?"

Mickey pressed her lips together angrily. "Mr. Sykes," she said evenly, despite the trembling frustration she felt brewing in her gut, "if Austin James wanted information from your file, he wouldn't need to steal it. He'd spend ten seconds looking at it and commit it to memory." She turned back to Graham. "He wouldn't take it. He wouldn't have to."

For a moment, the two men looked at each other and neither spoke. Then Graham let out a breath. "It's true," he confirmed.

Sykes was silent for a long, tense moment, his lips pressed together. He looked like he desperately wanted to argue further, but had no words to support the effort. Then he swatted the air with his hand as at a bothersome fly. "I thought we settled all this last Thursday," he said to Graham bitterly. He moved toward the door, stopping to throw a reproachful scowl at Mickey. Once more, he stabbed a finger at her, close enough this time that she stumbled backwards a step. "You just tell that boyfriend of yours to stay out of my business or I'll have him ruined." He turned on his heel and stormed from the room.

"He's not my boyfriend!" Mickey called after him. "And I can't tell him anything if I don't know where he is." She glanced at Graham, still sitting speechless behind his desk. "He went to Chicago?"

* * *

On her way back out of Serendip, perhaps for the last time, she thought about her first encounter with Carl Sykes, the infamous office visit with Austin. She hadn't been entirely forthcoming with Graham back in his office. Although Austin hadn't taken anything she was aware of, he had done some clandestine snooping one day, the second day after learning of the death of Edgar Johnson.

It had been early in the morning, before seven, when Austin had paged her that day. She was up, but had just stepped out of the shower. The precedent he had set was that he wouldn't require her before nine or ten on any given day, not because he was such a night owl, but because anytime was as good as another since the man didn't sleep. Or at least he had no ordinary block of nighttime sleep that one would expect of a normal person.

Austin had what he called 'fragmented REM cycles.' In essence, it meant he slept only one complete sleep cycle at a time, or about ninety minutes, several times in twenty-four hours, and achieved even that with the help of a tool cabinet, or more scientifically deemed a 'sensory deprivation chamber.' Mickey thought his condition sounded horrid, but Austin was cavalier about it. He called it a necessary concession to his state of savant grade cognitive aptitude and eidetic memory, and essentially an even trade. Mickey called it tragic and said she'd take dim intellect and a curbed memory for a nine-hour stretch of sleep any day.

He had asked her to hurry; he needed to be at Serendip before 8:00, an unheard of request from him. She had acquiesced and succeeded with no small effort in getting to the warehouse to pick him up in plenty of time to meet his unusual demand. Nonetheless, he was already cranky and curt, standing outside by his car in the early morning sun and glaring, when she pulled into the warehouse lot.

"Where were you? I've been out here for twenty minutes," he complained, dropping the keys in her hand and folding himself into the passenger seat of the station wagon.

Mickey expertly slid into her seat, dropped her bag at his feet, and turned the key in the ignition in one fluid action. "Austin, you only called me thirty minutes ago. I can't teleport."

"No one can teleport; it doesn't exist. Your hair's wet."

Exasperated, she glared back at him, sitting next to her ramrod straight and buttoned to the throat in a plain black shirt, his no-nonsense motif. "If I really could teleport, maybe I would've had time to dry my hair this morning. And I'm stopping for coffee on the way—grumble all you want to; you can't stop me." She pulled into gear, eyes on the road, and didn't let him see she hadn't missed the quiver of a barely-contained smile at the corner of his mouth. She suspected he'd be disappointed if she didn't at least pretend to be put-out.

They had arrived at Serendip before 8:00, as he had requested. Austin was on a mission that morning, taking long, rapid strides en route to a destination known only to him. With a firm grip on her fast food coffee cup, Mickey hurried to keep pace with him, grateful for the wait at the elevator so she could catch a breath and a swig of her coffee.

Together, they reached the glass double doors to the Genetics Division. There, Austin came to an abrupt stop, and turned to his secretary. She pulled up almost as fast as he did, but still managed to step partway on his foot. He didn't seem to notice.

"I need you to stay here," he told her.

"Why?"

"So you can run interference for me in case the genetics director shows up before I get back." He checked his watch. "Directors' meeting should be going for another few minutes, longer if someone's complaining."

She cocked her head at him and gave him a withering stare, chiding in a low voice, "Are you breaking into his office?"

"No!" he scoffed, his face contorted in offended innocence. He glanced over his shoulder at the office in question. "Clearly, the door is open. No breaking in necessary."

She made a wry look. "How're you getting past his secretary?"

"What's her name?"

"Um, Diana something. Feder….Fed…"

"Hurry up. Think!"

Mickey waved an admonishing hand in the space between them. "Shh. Let me think!" She scrunched her eyes closed with her fingers pressed against her temples and bent her head. Then her eyes popped open and she hissed excitedly, "Federspiel. Diana Federspiel."

Austin rewarded her success with a cocky smile of his own, and then he turned suddenly away, disappearing around a corner to the nearest corridor. He was back not a minute later, his smile of satisfaction a bit broader. "Wait a second."

The overhead supermarket music was suddenly overlaid by a droning voice. "Would Diana Federspiel please report immediately to Human Resources? Diana Federspiel. You have a package for pick up."

Austin's eyes twinkled at Mickey and her doubtful look gave way to tacit approval. He bit his lip in eager anticipation as the farther glass door pushed open behind them and a well-maintained, dark-haired woman in a navy skirt and blazer hurried past. Austin slipped through the still-open door before it had a chance to sweep closed on its hydraulic arm.

While he was occupied there, Mickey examined the framed photographs of the officers of the department, stopping to spend more time with the director, Carl Sykes. He was a dark eyed, dark haired man with graying temples and an athletic build. In the photograph, he was sporting a cocky grin, almost a laughing appearance. He had bronze tanned skin and an impeccable suit. Mickey blew out a sigh that lifted the curls up off her forehead and she turned around and wandered back down the hall to keep an eye on the elevator.

The steel doors opened three times while she watched. The first time her heart skipped and she anxiously scanned the faces of the exiting passengers, fully expecting either Mr. Sykes or his secretary to step out. The second time, she wasn't quite so anxious. The third time, she stood momentarily frozen as both Mr. Sykes and Diana Federspiel stepped off together. The secretary was giving her boss an earful about a crank call from the general switchboard. Mickey bit her lip, hesitated, and then darted out to meet them well before they reached the double doors.

"Mr. Sykes," she exclaimed, louder than necessary and with a peculiar level of intensity, "I'm so glad I found you. I'm Mickey Castle, Austin James' secretary, and he urgently needs to speak with you. He's in his office right now."

The man and his secretary exchanged perplexed looks and for an awkward moment, neither said anything. Finally, Mr. Sykes replied slowly, "I don't know whether I was aware Mr. James had an office at Serendip. He definitely isn't in the habit of using it."

Diana was quick to chime in once her boss had finished. "Why didn't you just call me to ask for a meeting?"

Mickey smiled as winningly as she could muster. "Well, like Mr. Sykes said, no one's entirely sure where Mr. James has an office. He sent me to bring you there directly." She sobered and looked squarely at Diana while holding her cup aloft. "Can I find you a cup of coffee?"

Suddenly, Austin was there, standing at Mickey's side, extending a hand to his colleague from Genetics. "Carl, hello, so glad I found you."

Reflexively, Sykes took his hand, but his smile was less than the megawatt version in the photograph as he asked, "Didn't you send your secretary to bring me to your office? And now you're here."

Austin laughed easily. "That's funny," he said, leading the way through the double doors back toward Sykes' office, prompting the man and his secretary to follow. "It seems my office has been re-appropriated as a conference room; The Lexington, I believe is what they're calling it."

Mickey followed behind the trio, biting back a smile as Diana exclaimed, "Work on the Lexington Conference Room was completed four years ago."

"Really? Has it been that long?" Austin shook his head. "Time flies."

Diana detoured to her desk before they reached Sykes' office, and Mickey was momentarily ready to settle herself in the lobby, except Austin's hand at the back of her upper arm was steering her into the room, making his preference clear. Austin sat down in a leather upholstered chair some distance from the executive desk, and Mickey sat in another as close to him as she could manage. There was nothing to do now but wait. Austin was clearly leading the encounter.

He didn't waste time on small talk. "I'm here about Edgar Johnson. What do you know?"

Sykes had been leaning back leisurely in his seat, but at this question, he sat up straighter and looked surprised. "He died. I heard about that yesterday morning. Shocking."

Austin waited, and let the silence drag out a while. Then he said abruptly, "I'm interested in what you know about his squash project, the one he brought to your attention."

"That?" Sykes said with a half-smile. "Is that why you're here, Austin? You think someone shot him over hybrid squash?" He laughed, a short bark, leaned forward some more and shook his head. "It was a big nothing. He cross-bred two incompatible strains of squash, which he pilfered from one of our biotech fields, and grew a weed." Then he leaned back again and glanced at Mickey before he continued. "From what I know about Edgar and his son, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a different weed involved in this, and it sure as hell didn't come from any team of mine."

Austin nodded, but otherwise remained stone-faced. "Any chance he pilfered from your NB2 strain?"

The effect of the question was remarkable. Mickey watched the man's face color and his hands grip together more tightly. He was no longer smiling, but he did show excellent control when he failed to take Austin's carefully placed bait. "There is no NB2 at the eastside field, James, or anywhere else in the company that I'm aware of, and there never was. That investigation closed more than a year ago, and as far as I'm concerned, it was nothing but a witch hunt. The subject is closed." Abruptly, he stood. "Is that all?"

Mickey got to her feet, and watched Austin slowly stretch his legs before he casually rose from his chair. "Just one more thing," he said, as though it were an afterthought. His blue eyes were sharp, though, and his smile taut. "The team you sent out to check out the Johnson project, was it successful in obtaining a squash?"

At that, Sykes looked uncertain. "What are you talking about?" he huffed impatiently. "What team? I never sent a team."

"His son told me a group of three who said they were from Serendip Genetics came out to the property, said they were offering to pay Edgar a handsome sum for a couple of the squash for study before Edgar burned the rest. They didn't come from you?"

"No," Sykes said, his eyes shifting from Austin to the door to Mickey. "He never did say where he was growing the squash, and I didn't consider it urgent enough to pursue offsite. That wasn't any team of mine. Now, if you'll excuse me…" He gave Mickey a grim smile as he moved past her to stand at his open door, ushering them both out. "Next time you need to talk, just call my secretary, would you?"

Once they had arrived back downstairs and were making their way toward the front entrance of the building, Mickey had questioned him. "Austin, what in the world is HB2?"

Austin frowned. "Potentially, it's a weapon of mass destruction."

She checked to see whether he was being facetious. He was not.

"HB2 is a laboratory-created virus, basically a complex chain of amino acids. It was developed by a research team in California about ten years ago as a means to feed the world through genetically engineered staple crops."

Mickey frowned. "Acorn squash?"

"Of course not," Austin chided. "Rice, corn, wheat; things like that. The gene sequence itself—the HB2—could be attached to desirable genomes from some particular organism and then injected into the nuclei of the cells of any kind of plant, with the HB2 acting as a courier to get the foreign DNA to assimilate while neutralizing the corresponding native DNA. The intention was to produce fast-growing, drought-tolerant crops for famine-stricken regions of the world. The idea itself had merit."

"But the product didn't work?"

Austin grimaced. "It was hit or miss. Genetic engineering is still in its infancy, Mickey. The potential is there for huge advances—a cure for cancer, reversal of untreatable diseases, the extention of human life by decades. But it's an inexact science. HB2, as it stands, can produce hearty, fast-growing crops that can thrive in desert climates and resist disease. But it can also create plants that invade large tracks of land and produce fruit toxic to the other plants and animals that share its environment. It's highly unpredictable. And that's why HB2-infused acorn squash pollen, after multiple laboratory trials by this particular research team, was rejected by the Food and Drug Administration before it could be used in squash or any other plants grown outside the lab. The FDA permanently banned it due to its potential to mimic viruses that are detrimental to human life." He shook his head in disgust. "And that's why Carl Sykes had no business bringing it with him to Serendip."

Mickey stared at him.

He nodded. "Sykes was a member of that team."

"Oh, Austin, is that what Edgar was growing?"

"I don't know, Mickey. Unless I test seeds from his squash, I have no way of knowing, just a hunch. But somebody out there did get some of those seeds, and they're not confined to a laboratory anymore."

It was a sobering thought.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Far from any sizable community, in a remote settlement on the eastern New Mexico plains, a pendulum wall clock, hanging as it had for the past twenty-six years up above the check-in desk at the Rosa Linda Motel, had just chimed five times. It was not yet dawn, on a Tuesday, no less, and Mr. George, the proprietor who predated the clock at that establishment by ten years, was both startled and annoyed to hear the front door bell ring. His custom was to arise from bed at 6:00 a.m. sharp. He needed no alarm; force of habit was strong enough. He'd had no other customer when he retired for the night at eleven but that transient fellow who'd come up from Texas a while back and paid by the week.

He grumbled, but dutifully rose, pulled on his old canvas work jacket over his pajamas and went up front to meet the caller. A solitary gentleman stood waiting, tall, thin, self-possessed. Mr. George rubbed his grizzled whiskers and gave the visitor a hard stare. "You want a room for tomorrow?"

"No, tonight," the man replied.

Mr. George glanced at his wall clock. "Check out's at 10:00. I don't give discounts."

"I'll be gone before then. Is there a phone in the room? I'll need to make a call."

The old proprietor frowned at him. "Long distance calls get charged to the room. You ain't some kind of fugitive on the run, are you? I'm gonna need to see some I.D."

The man smiled, and even chuckled a bit. "I'm pretty sure no one's out to get me but my secretary. I'm traveling on business; I don't fly. But if you want to see for yourself…" He extracted an Arizona driver's license from his wallet, as well as a credit card, and set them both on the counter in front of Mr. George. "My name is Austin James." He stuck out a hand. "Pleased to meet you."

From there, it hadn't taken long to secure a room for what remained of the morning until 10:00. Austin pulled up the station wagon to the last room on the left, number 11, and unloaded one garment bag and the duffle. He returned to the rear hatch to extract two bulky sheets of folded cardboard and a roll of packing foam, hauling them across the threshold of his room and locking the door behind him.

The room was sparsely furnished. It contained a desk, a bureau, a night stand, and a bed. In the upper right corner from the door, a television set sat perched up on a shelf. Austin had no use for any of the items except maybe the desk, on which sat a yellow rotary phone. But that would come later. First, he needed a nap.

He set to work assembling two cardboard refrigerator boxes end to end alongside the bed, creating a seven-foot-long contraption with a flap that opened lengthwise across the top of one of the boxes, allowing access. Into the box, he unrolled a length of three inch thick foam padding. Then he placed in his own firm pillow. Finally, he dug in the duffle for a small, foam-lined box which contained his portable sound-masking generator and his blue baseball cap outfitted with the flexible headset and compatible cables. Assembly of the equipment took but a minute.

It was a familiar routine he had developed over time to accommodate his sleep needs while traveling. It was admittedly a crude rendition of his preferred sensory deprivation tank, but it worked for him, and he had stopped caring what housekeeping thought of it a long time ago. He visited the adjoining bathroom to wash up and strip down, turned off the light and deposited himself inside his makeshift tank.

He had just set his mind on the slumber-inducing exercise of randomly shuffling sequence permutations when the non sequitur intrusion of Beverly Castle's meatloaf, so aromatic and flavorful, broke the flow of his mental thread and jarred him back to wakefulness. Something suspiciously close to regret subsequently seeped into his consciousness until he rolled over and mentally chastised himself for his lack of self-control. Such irrational cravings should have been the least of his concerns.

Edgar Johnson was dead. And Serendip—Graham McKinley—was complicit in his murder. The events of Thursday had been pivotal. If Austin had believed he had even a shred of Graham's support in this effort to secure justice for Edgar and preserve Serendip's long-term credibility in genetics research, then that illusion was thoroughly dismantled at the Thursday night corporate shindig. Again, Graham bore the brunt of the responsibility. Circumstances had deteriorated to where they now stood first as a result of his meddling, and later as a result of his glaring lack of spinal fortitude.

Attending any one of Graham's staff parties would never rank high on Austin's priorities, although Mickey persistently scheduled him to put in an appearance at least once out of every three of the affairs as a show of basic good will. Thursday, by contrast, had been Austin's idea.

He knew Carl Sykes was guilty as sin, if not of murder, then at least of supplying the catalyst that directly led to murder. Sykes had resurrected his HB2 project. Maybe he had renamed it, lumped it in with another bioengineering effort as some sort of add-on, and then squirreled away or destroyed the old project file. The evidence certainly hadn't been anywhere Austin could find it when he looked. But it was still the same highly potent, highly dangerous viral conduit it had ever been. Facts don't lie. And acorn squash don't progress from germination to seed in four weeks, not without synthetic help.

Austin had learned from the visit he had made to Edgar's grown son, Leroy, on the day he'd learned about the murder that contrary to Sykes' report, the director had been keenly interested in Edgar's squash. He had made a personal visit to the property, had been perturbed about not being allowed to view the plot directly. He had even made a cash offer, which Edgar had rejected, for just one of the ripe squash. When Edgar's fascination with his bounty turned to concern about its subsequent pervasiveness, it was Sykes who first suggested that burning the squash might be the best way to contain it. But now Sykes denied any visit, any offer, and even any interest in anything associated with Edgar Johnson. He was clearly Austin's primary person of interest.

Given that Carl Sykes, the ambitious, attention-seeking carnivore that he was, would never miss an opportunity to be noticed and admired at a staff and benefactor's banquet at the Executive Director's home, that event got launched to a mandatory engagement. Austin and his secretary would most certainly be in attendance.

There was never any question Mickey would accompany him. It wasn't lost on Austin that he was rarely seen without his attractive female assistant, and what this might imply to the casual observer, but in the same vein as housekeeping and his refrigerator box setup, he lacked self-consciousness about it. Mickey was his constant, willing, and candid sounding board and investigating partner. Whatever she lacked in functional memory and scientific know-how, she more than made up for in practical insight, uncanny intuition, and extraordinary stamina. He allowed himself to depend on her input well beyond what he had ever openly acknowledged. Both objectively and subjectively, her value to him was incalculable. So if onlookers chose to presume more to their association than the platonic comradery that it was, he couldn't say he was opposed to it, not strongly. If he were honest with himself, he might admit he was flattered.

She had come to the warehouse decked out to the nines in a cocktail dress—black velvet, boat neck, knee-skimming lace hem, her hair arranged in a loose up-do, exposing her dangling silver and black earrings in dramatic relief against her low-pigment, remarkably unblemished neck. She was flushed with anticipation, being socially fluent enough to expect a fun experience even at a corporate networking dinner.

Once they had arrived at the arched entrance of the stately Spanish revival home and surrendered the station wagon to the valet, she had eagerly grabbed hold of his arm, pulling him along into the courtyard toward the nearest hors d'oeuvre-bearing waiter. "Look, Austin, mini quiche! I'm starving."

With Mickey pleasantly preoccupied with the edible offerings, Austin wandered farther inside the outdoor enclosure to the white stucco wall near the entrance to the main house. From there, he positioned himself where he could oversee the greatest majority of the party population. He had made sure to arrive early, knowing Sykes would not, so he could be ready to meet him on his own terms.

Without intending to, he made eye contact with Graham, who was then obligated to approach him and with grating self-satisfaction make some favorable comment to the effect Austin had exerted himself enough today to show up for a function he should have shown up for anyway. Austin proceeded to exert himself further and thank Graham for his gratuitous observation.

A short time after that, Mickey swept in with buoyancy in her step to slip a plastic cocktail glass three quarters full of a pink liquid into his hand. "You look wound up," she said, her blue-gray eyes studying him critically. "Try the zinfandel."

He cast a dubious glance at the glass and muttered, "I'd rather try scotch." But knowing Mickey, she'd procure one for him, and he wasn't truly in the mood to unwind that much, not here. "Not really," he amended quickly. She pulled back and shot him a questioning look, confirming he had correctly guessed her intention. "Not now. Thanks."

"Look!" she urged quietly, nodding toward the entrance, the question of beverages forgotten. "He's here." Austin had never explicitly stated his purpose for exerting himself to Mickey, but he found she was often able to anticipate his motives without much briefing.

Indeed, Carl Sykes had just entered into the courtyard, with a woman of Nordic heritage who was wearing a mink stole, a plunging neckline, and stiletto heels and was clinging to his arm. From the rock on her finger, she was his wife. From her disparately low age and posture of high dependency, she was not his first one, nor likely to be his last. They immediately greeted Graham and his wife, to commend their hospitality and to be sure that they were acknowledged. After that, the wife was invited by Sykes to part ways with him and mingle with a knot of other trophy brides, while Sykes proceeded to make the rounds of the other division chiefs and board members in a primarily counter-clockwise fashion.

Austin, biding his time and steering himself subtly toward the two 'o' clock position, was moments from his approach when an outlier stepped in, a sharp-dressed, youthful man certainly under the age of thirty with dark, wavy hair and a presence that exuded quiet confidence. This other man was also accompanied by a woman, a sleek Mediterranean type wearing a curve-accentuating, shimmering navy sheath and matching strappy heels. The woman had no rock on her left hand. She stood outside of an intimate closeness to the man, tapping his arm with the back of her hand once or twice, but otherwise not touching him, indicating without absolutely establishing that they were more colleagues than lovers. He greeted Sykes, who then extended a hand and the two began talking in earnest, the woman nodding more than speaking, but standing attentively within the circle of conversation.

"Who's that?" Mickey said low, standing close by Austin's elbow.

He observed them a moment longer. "He's an investor." He watched the conversation, the body language, and the details spoke a story that required no words. "He comes from old money, but not too old, probably his grandfather during the post-war industrial boom. He's spoken with Sykes before, but this is their first meeting. He has a business proposition. Carl's not sure he wants in on it yet, so he's stringing the kid along a little until he makes up his mind one way or another. The girl is a business associate, and probably a former schoolmate. They go way back."

Mickey was staring at him with an expression that indicated she didn't doubt his conclusions, but still found them less than satisfactory. "Didn't you come up with their names yet, and where they went to school together?"

He blinked and turned to her. "Not yet." She stared at him expectantly until he smiled. "Let's go find out."

He deposited his glass of wine on the nearest tray set up for that purpose, and with no preamble, he stepped directly into the conversation in progress, facing the young man. "Hello, I'm Austin James, president of Serendip, and this is my associate, Mickey Castle. I don't believe we've met." He simultaneously offered a handshake to the startled young businessman and tipped his head slightly toward Sykes. "Hi, Carl."

Sykes' jaw twitched. "Austin—"

"Mr. James!" It was the woman who made the surprised exclamation. She nudged the man's arm again. "Erich, what luck!" She smiled broadly at Austin, shaking his hand warmly. "We were hoping to get a chance to speak with you while we were in town, but some of your colleagues at Serendip led us to believe you don't trouble yourself with these little parties." While she spoke, her smile faltered momentarily to toss a mildly peeved look at Sykes. She returned her attention to Austin in short order and continued. "I'm Amber Jezic, Communications Director for the Thorne Foundation, and this," she nodded toward the man at her left, "is Erich Thorne, Executive Director of the foundation."

The young man looked pleased, if more restrained than his communications director. He was a trim, clean-shaven man, similar in height and complexion to Austin, although Erich's eyes were so light brown as to be almost yellow. He dipped his head slightly in deference toward Austin and spoke in a voice that while resonant enough to be heard, was low enough to be confidential. "I have admired your work for a long time, Mr. James."

Austin decided to humor him. "And which work is that?"

"Where would I begin?" he said with a self-deprecating smile, his light brown eyes shifting to meet Mickey's in a way that suggested they shared a secret understanding. "I specifically had your work in electromagnetic thermography in mind, the paper from 1981. I read it when it came out and I've referred to it often since then. Your ideas there were…revolutionary…to the world of genetic nondestructive testing."

"You were reading my research publications in 1981?"

"Sure, when I was in grad school."

Austin raised an eyebrow. "Eight years ago? You don't look much older than twenty-five."

The young man emitted a good-natured laugh. "Twenty-six, actually. I was a bit precocious, much like you, Mr. James," he admitted. "If I had time, I'd very much enjoy discussing some of the work we have in common, but I'm afraid this is a working engagement for Amber and me." He motioned toward Sykes. "We made an appointment to speak with Mr. Sykes this evening."

"Here, take my card." Austin pulled one from his breast pocket and handed it to Erich, who flashed a grateful smile and tucked it carefully in his wallet. "If you find time, give me a call. I'd like to hear more about this foundation you're heading up." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I'm guessing you provide backing for genetics research, gene transference engineering, that sort of thing?"

"Mr. James," Carl Sykes interjected suddenly, his resentment finally reaching the desired pitch. "If you would excuse us—"

"That is a very accurate guess," Erich interrupted, looking enormously pleased. "Carl has a pending biotechnology project he thought might interest us in just that field."

"Would acorn squash be the target organism?"

Amber laughed suddenly and tossed her long, dark hair over her shoulder. "You are on fire, Mr. James. Has Carl already informed you of the proposal?"

Carl Sykes' face was coloring rapidly. "James, might I have a word in private—"

"He has some work from his previous research group that perfectly fits your profile," Austin continued, ignoring the request. "In fact, we were just discussing it the other day in his office—"

"Graham!" Sykes' cried, motioning over the executive director as he passed in the vicinity. "We are having a problem—"

A general murmur was rising from the surrounding guests, aware of the sudden spike in tension from that quarter. And as the noise level increased, Austin notched up his own voice to be heard over it. "I understand there have been some exciting new developments in genetically engineered squash using a viral gene sequence that—"

"Austin!" Graham McKinley's shout cut through the cacophony, and all at once the courtyard was quiet, except for a few quiet exclamations and the easy listening canned music wafting from strategically placed speakers. His eyes shifted uncomfortably left and right, and after an interminable moment, he said to the party at large, "Carry on." After a fashion, it did, but not without some persistent stares and low voices.

Sykes was at Graham's side, leaning in to speak angrily in a tight, low voice. "Austin James is completely out of line. He's accosting me, he's making himself obnoxious to your guests—"

In his core, Austin felt a spark of righteous indignation flare up into flame. Men like Sykes, twisting the truth, always grasping, always crushing obstacles to the almighty goal of self-adulation, and ripping down anything beneficial or beautiful or humane, those were the men that triumphed in this imperfect world. And ordinary nobodies like Edgar Johnson went down to the dirt unheeded. "Ask him about HB2," he said darkly.

"There is something not right with this man," Sykes continued, more heatedly. "He has harassed me endlessly, without just cause—"

"Ask him," Austin insisted, locking eyes with Sykes, and finding Sykes was having a hard time not turning away. Austin was vaguely aware of Mickey grasping his arm at the elbow in both her hands, and he realized his hands were balled in fists.

Sykes kicked at the ground in frustration. "As I told you before, James, that deal is dead. I don't know what makes you obsess over this thing; I don't know anything about it!"

With some effort, Austin relaxed his posture, or at least his fists. Mickey was still hanging on. "I believe you, Carl," he said, with a sudden air of calm. "I don't think you know enough about that project to paint it by numbers. I think you just wanted to peddle it to the highest bidder."

"Slander!" Sykes cried, causing the party to freeze and almost universally turn toward the disturbance again, drawn to watch it as to a terrible motor vehicle accident.

"Austin!" Graham exclaimed almost simultaneously. "I understand you are upset about the death of Mr. Johnson, but what you're doing here is crazy. Stop it now."

"Why else is he meeting with an out-of-state genetics firm here, under Serendip's radar?"

"I said, stop it."

"Edgar Johnson did what he couldn't. Edgar Johnson made HB2 work. And now this man's negotiating the deal."

"Does he need to get a restraining order against you? Good God!"

"And that's why Edgar Johnson is dead!"

A gasp sounded from nearby, but it wasn't Mickey, as Austin would have expected. It was Amber Jezic. It may have been partly inspired by the tumultuous turn of events, making the entire party nervous and distracted, but Amber also managed to step backwards into a folding tray stand carrying a large silver tray loaded to overflowing with plastic cups, plates, and flatware. As she pressed against it to steady herself, the entire tray tipped off balance and toppled to the ground, making a terrible racket against the terracotta tiled terrace.

Graham grimaced, his wife let out a cry of dismay, and then Graham was running a hand over his face, motioning to wait staff to retrieve the spilt items splattered and rolling on the tiles. "Just drop it, Austin," he demanded. "Don't bring it up ever again. And do us all a favor and go home." He turned away, bending over to help with the cleanup effort.

Austin said nothing more, and left without further incident. The party was over, and the trap had been laid. There was nothing left to do but go home and wait.

* * *

He awoke from his nap at the wayside motel at 8:30 a.m., giving him at least two good hours of rest. Assuming the remainder of the journey proceeded without incident, he could expect to arrive at his destination well before the Wednesday morning meeting he had promised his new employer. He returned to the bathroom to again wash up and don fresh clothes, and then settled himself on the bed beside the desk with its yellow rotary phone. He pulled the phone onto his lap, dialed the number he had been given late Thursday night, and waited for the line to pick up.

"This is Austin James," he announced to the answering greeting. "I'm on track to arrive by 4:00 in the morning. Let Erich know we're on for ten. And please have the room and the laboratory arranged as we discussed." He hung up, and sat motionless in thought for a moment longer. And then, grim and determined, he smiled.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

After his ignominious dismissal from Graham's party, Austin had parted ways with Mickey back at the warehouse and returned inside. He was prepared to wait a while; sometimes these things took time to ferment, but he needn't have been concerned. No sooner had he called up a brooding set of nocturnes by Chopin on his overhead mike and settled onto his couch with a cup of hot tea, the phone rang.

He glanced at the time on the clock next to him on the end table. Nine-thirty. The phone number was an unfamiliar one. On the second ring, he patched in the call. "Austin James."

"Mr. James," began a voice he immediately recognized with no surprise whatsoever. "This is Erich Thorne, of the Thorne Foundation. I apologize if this is a late hour to call you—"

"It's not."

After a startled pause, Erich continued. "Good. I'll be brief. Amber and I will be returning to Chicago in the morning, but we agree that we haven't accomplished what we had hoped tonight. I would like…it would be a great honor," he amended, "if you would meet with us before we go. My foundation needs a chief research scientist, and after the events of this evening, I think I may have an opportunity for you to work with more…"

Austin frowned and waited. "More what, Erich?"

"More respect, to be frank. And I have some concerns about Mr. Sykes. You believe he was involved in a murder?"

"Not absolutely. Just a hunch. What else can you offer me?"

"Excuse me?"

"Respect is dandy, but it doesn't pay the bills, Erich. What else are you offering your 'Chief Research Scientist'?"

He could hear the smile in Erich's voice. "I assume you are familiar with the HB2 project Carl Sykes worked on."

"I am."

"Do you think you could test it and bring it to the next level?"

Austin took a long quaff of his tea before he answered. "What do you want it to do?"

Very intently, Erich replied, "I want it to work; I want it to assimilate the desired DNA in the prescribed way, every time, regardless of the test organism, and be consistently reproduced in successive generations. Can you do it?"

"I need Edgar Johnson's seeds."

Now there was a silence. It stretched out for a while, and finally Erich spoke. "Mr. James," he began carefully, "If you had the seeds, what incentive would you require to come to Chicago and work with us?"

It was the essential thrill of working these cases, that moment when he hooked one of the players and the chase truly began. He had to tamp down a burst of giddy excitement. He lounged back into the couch cushions a little, smiling. "Why don't you and Amber come by my workshop tonight? I think we can talk. And Erich?"

"Yes, Mr. James?"

"Call me Austin."

* * *

Now, six days after that extremely fruitful conversation, Austin had arrived at the ivy-adorned, natural masonry, Georgian estate perched up on a sprawling hillside lawn above the graveled shoreline of Lake Michigan, the site of the remarkably generous Thorne Foundation.

Erich had wired him a hefty half-million after his check-in call from the motel, and would match that first amount by the end of the day Wednesday. The laboratory was a separate building adjacent to the main estate house, a pristine, state-of-the-art facility fully loaded with the most sophisticated testing equipment and computer systems available. A resident suite was in the building, with open access to the lab and outfitted with a full bath and a sensory deprivation tank, both arranged according to Austin's specifications.

He had arrived at the estate a few minutes before 4:30 a.m., and leaving the hired help to tend to his car and his belongings, he eagerly retired to the tank, discarding his clothes in a pile on top of it. He slept a good amount longer than his customary hour or two. And when he awoke and crawled back out the door of the tank, he stood up and found himself face to face with company.

This had only happened once before, and the invader of his privacy that time had been Mickey, on the morning Serendip had hired on his behalf the last in a line of secretaries he never asked for. Her reaction to his sleeping quarters and absence of attire had been a series of horrified shrieks, followed up by a query regarding whether he might be on drugs. Today's visitor was far less expressive.

"Welcome to Thorne Oaks, Austin," Amber Jezic said, with a frozen smile and eyes firmly trained on his face. Her dark hair was pulled up into a business-worthy knot and she was dressed in a khaki linen suit with a long, slim skirt, and a silk blouse with an alluring crisscross neckline. Aside from this, she might as well have been wearing a cervical collar; her neck was that stiff. "I hope you found everything here arranged to your liking."

He grimaced and turned back toward the tank, seized his pants off of it and bent to quickly don them. "Is it ten 'o' clock?" he grumbled in a clipped tone, standing upright and zipping up before he turned back to face her again. "Erich didn't tell me I'd have an earlier appointment or I might have been less casual." He shot a glare at her.

Her neck lost some of its rigidity, but now her face had gained quite a lot of color. "I'm sorry to intrude. I only meant to leave you this." She held aloft a business-sized envelope. "It has information concerning your ten 'o' clock meeting, from Erich. You were supposed to see it when you woke up."

Austin stuck his arms into the sleeves of his crumpled gray oxford. Then he plucked the envelope from Amber's hand, extracted its contents, and gave them a quick once-over, two pages, front and back. Following his thirty-second perusal, he stuffed the pages back into the envelope and extended it outward, shaking it in her direction until she absently took it back. Then his fingers busily worked the buttons of his shirt, from bottom to top. "Tell Erich I'll need time to set up my optical switching and pattern recognition system before noon. When that's done, I will need him to bring me the seed. First, we'll get it chipped, then I'll need a precision grinder, a PET detector, mass spectrometer, and probably a phosphoimager, to be on the safe side…" He finished buttoning his shirt while he was speaking and had grabbed his socks, crossed the room to a suede leather loveseat, and plunked down on it. "Are you writing this down or do you think you'll remember all of it?"

She startled and flipped a page over in the notebook she had been holding forgotten in her left hand since she had greeted him. "I'm sorry. Tell me again what that was that you're setting up before noon?"

His shoes were quickly shod and tied, and he rose again to his feet. "Never mind, we'll get back to this later. It's going to be ten 'o' clock soon, and I still want a shower and a change of clothes. I'll talk to Erich myself. What do you have to eat in a hurry?"

Amber closed the notebook and hurried to catch up with him as he left his sleeping quarters and entered the lab. "There is a chef on staff we can call on back at the main house to prepare—"

"Get me an egg." Austin stopped abruptly and turned to face her, causing her to backpedal and stumble to avoid a collision. "Actually, bring a dozen of them, and a jar of wheat germ, a bag of whole carrots, and plain bagels. I can keep them in the refrigerator out here and add to it myself after today." He turned to the nearest wall to inspect a circuit panel momentarily, then opened and eyed the breaker box mounted next to it, and then moved on to the upper cabinets above a metal countertop running the length of one side of the lab. He briefly inspected the contents of each one, and then closed it and moved on to the next one. Four doors in, he stopped and turned again to Amber, who stood frozen at the threshold between the lab and the living area, holding on to her notebook and staring at him with a look of stupefied fascination.

"What?" he demanded.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm taking inventory of the lab. I need to know what all is in here before I get started." He shook his head. "How about you just bring the eggs? Can you do that? And give me fifteen minutes. I'm going to shower first."

"Y-yes, sir," she stammered, and turned to go. She looked back over her shoulder once when she reached the outer entryway. He was still systematically opening and closing laboratory cabinet doors. She stared a moment longer and left the lab.

* * *

There was a light rap on the conference room door and it opened, revealing a hesitant Amber Jezic lingering in the doorway. Erich Thorne, running a hand through the rumpled dark brown locks of hair gelled up off his forehead, looked up from the stacks of papers spread out in front of him on the oblong mahogany conference table, and tossed a lopsided smile her way.

"Something wrong?" he inquired knowingly, nodding her inside. He gathered up the papers into just two neat stacks on the polished surface, one at his left hand and one at his right, and leaned back in his leather executive chair.

She entered the room and quietly shut the door behind her, and leaned back against it long enough to blow out a long breath and roll her eyes. Then she approached the table just close enough to sharply toss down the envelope containing Erich's meeting information for Austin between the two stacks of papers. "Smart people are weird, Erich. Maybe you'll get along with this one alright, but next time don't ask me to deliver your messages. He was indisposed."

This declaration produced a stout laugh from the young man dressed in his casually disheveled white-collared blue oxford and khaki slacks. "I haven't known you to embarrass so easily. Maybe you're losing your touch."

She wrinkled her nose. "It's different when I know what I'm walking into. He was sleeping in a tool cabinet."

"I know. I'm the one who put in the work order for it. So now the staff thinks I may be a little off kilter." He was still grinning. "C'est la vie."

"No. I don't think you get it. He eats raw eggs; he asked me for a dozen of them, and now he wants a blender. He moves constantly. I don't know if he's manic, but he doesn't stop moving, ever. Erich, I don't know if I can—"

He silenced her with the sudden departure of his cheerful nonchalance as he sat forward, frowning, and clapped a hand down with a sharp bang on the tabletop. "Let's get something straight right now, Amber," he intoned with quiet intensity. "The man doesn't have to be personable. He doesn't have to be quite sane. He can be functionally incompetent for all I care, as long as he is able and willing to produce the results. You know he's the only one we've met in six months who stands half a chance of getting the DNA to transfer successfully, and if he doesn't do it, we're finished. Dr. Krueger says he's pulling the plug. We can't afford to risk losing our funding just because you're not impressed with Austin James' habits. So cool it. Do whatever it takes to keep him happy for as long as you can. That's what I need from you. That's your job right now." Then, just as suddenly, he softened, returning very near to his earlier disposition, and offered a conciliatory grin as he returned to lounging back in his chair. "I'm counting on you."

Her lower lip was pushed out in a pout, but she nodded and chose not to say anything further about the matter, changing the subject instead. "Is Dr. Krueger here yet?"

Erich's answer was a brief tip of his head toward the wall to his right, where an oval shaped mirror encased in an elaborately stylized metallic frame was mounted. "Let Austin know I'm ready for him anytime. Dr. Krueger will want to observe him before he officially meets him."

"I'll tell him."

It was no more than ten minutes later when Austin James appeared at the door. He opened it with hardly a precursory knock and immediately entered. Erich quickly rose to his feet, offered a hand and a round of predictable and succinct niceties before the two men each sat, facing opposite each other at the conference table, the mirror gracing the wall perpendicular to them both from where it was mounted, at the head of the table.

Erich's smile was broad, beaming. "Amber says you're extremely eager to get started. No need for a little downtime after that long haul you made?"

"I rested." Austin smiled thinly. "I'm ready to start whenever you are. I got the impression last Thursday that this project is on a strict timeline. There's a sense of urgency."

Erich nodded. "Not so much urgency as excitement. The foundation has been waiting for a breakthrough for months. You don't know how happy everyone involved is that you've chosen to join us."

Austin lifted his chin slightly. "Who exactly is 'everyone involved'? You've mentioned so far a couple of investors, and then there's Amber. I'm not sure what her role is beyond being my personal handler, apparently." He smiled at the flash of mortified surprise that crossed Erich's face before it went neutral again. "She's pleasant enough, but I don't think she's going to work out. I hope you have something else for her to do."

"Amber is a vital member of the team," Erich replied, with a smile that had gone somewhat wooden. "Her largest contribution to this project begins as soon as yours is completed. She is particularly invested in your success."

"What exactly is her area of expertise?"

"Her education is in business communications. Her value to the foundation is her exceptional willingness to be a team player."

"Okay, so tell me more about the team. I half expected you to assemble them today for this meeting. Where are they?"

Erich leaned back slightly in his chair, eyes narrowed, thinking momentarily before he gave any answer. "Austin, I know you have come most recently from a for-profit think tank with its own holdings and subsidiaries, and a board of directors. That is not the way The Thorne Foundation operates. In fact, it's a radically different concept. We are small, just one branch among many of a much larger organization, and while I lead the Thorne team, each member is a full participant. There is no need for a board, per se. Ours is quite an exclusive group, to be honest, and we enjoy tremendous international support."

"I assume you at least have a team of geneticists I'm supposed to be leading."

"At present," Erich admitted, "the team is being overhauled. That is why your being here is so encouraging. Our last chief research scientist bowed out of this arm of the program and returned to the holding company overseas. With him gone, obviously the team needed restructuring. The remaining members have been on hiatus, waiting for me to recall them."

Austin leaned back, still studying Erich intently as he digested this information. "Who is your holding company?"

"Our chief benefactor and essentially our founder is a very wealthy gentleman who resides in Switzerland. His name is not widely recognized; he doesn't seek attention for himself, only for his mission. Here in the United States, the Thorne Foundation exists solely for the purpose of developing an innovative and far-reaching genetic modification technique, which our other affiliates will then use in their own capacities to fulfill the larger mission of the organization.

"Alright, what's the organization's mission?"

"To build a better tomorrow through innovation, education, and preparation. We seek to advance human potential on the global platform, whether it be in nutrition, in cultural development, healthcare, or technology."

"Would you say we're talking about an organization or a movement?"

Erich frowned. "I suppose it's a little of both. If you don't mind me asking, Austin, what are you getting at with this line of questioning?"

For a long moment, the two men sat staring across the table at each other. Then Austin straightened in his chair and glanced to his left at the mounted mirror on the wall. "I'm asking the questions any thinking man would have when considering an affiliation with a new company. I want to know the mission, the scope, the objectives, and the members of the organization. What I'm getting from you is a tad circumspect, and unless you're unusually preoccupied with checking your reflection today, I'd say you've got your chief benefactor stowed back behind that mirror." He tossed a casual wave in the direction of the object in question. "Someone whose opinion matters is behind that glass, because you've been looking at it three times more than you've been looking at me." Then he looked directly at the mirror and smiled triumphantly. "And no offense, but that's the person I really want to talk to right now."

Erich hesitated, and then slowly stood. "If you'll stay here, I'll check with him. It isn't his custom to meet with new members immediately. He's a bit reticent."

"I'll say."

"Wait here," Erich repeated, walking toward the door. It opened from the other side just short of him reaching it.

Austin swiveled in his seat toward the door to get a look at the newest arrival, and when he did, it brought him to his own feet. He had not been prepared for the sight that met him. "Dr. Emil Krueger?"

In the doorway stood a stout man of about sixty in plain shirtsleeves and grey slacks, wire rimmed glasses perched on a narrow nose in a face well lined with deep wrinkles and topped with a thick cap of slate gray hair. He had aged considerably since Austin had last seen him, but his presence was unmistakable. "Austin James," he replied with near reverence, as though he had just unearthed a priceless relic. "I can't tell you how much I've been looking forward to this day ever since Erich told me who he had brought on board." He smiled broadly. "And you are exactly as I remember. It is good to see you."

Austin stood unsmiling, hands at his sides, shaking his head in disbelief. "You were declared dead. Did you know that? You went down somewhere over Ukraine sixteen years ago. They said it was a burned out wreck; no survivors." He rubbed the side of his face with a hand, trying to reconcile the truth standing in front of him with the established history that was quickly unraveling in his memory. Classes had been canceled and the department closed, and he hadn't known where else to go. He had wandered away from the campus and into town, finding a park bench to sit on until it grew dark, just trying to wrap his head around the untimely tragedy, the gut-wrenching loss. "The department was devastated. And Hilda! I gave her my condolences at the memorial service." He dropped his hand and his lip curled in a sneer at the man. "And you've been living and working in Switzerland?"

Erich cleared his throat lightly. "Perhaps, Doctor…"

The older gentleman laid one sinewy, deeply tanned hand on Erich's shoulder and gave it a pat. "I agree, Erich. Mr. James and I have much to discuss. This may take some time. Please have Toberson prepare lunch on the patio while I take a walk out back. You may get started on the business we talked about last night, and Austin and I will catch up with you this afternoon." He took a few steps from Erich, casting a beckoning glance toward Austin. "Come, my old friend. I know you have questions." He held Austin—who stood in a scowling, arm-folded posture—in an air of cheerful forbearance before strolling in a leisurely manner back out of the conference room. After another moment's hesitation, Austin trailed after him.

Neither man spoke another word until they had exited the estate house through the back door and set out on the ribbon of cobbled pathway weaving its way across the expansive rear lawn toward the wind-blown waters of Lake Michigan and looping back again. Austin clasped his hands behind his back and waited for the other man to initiate the conversation.

Dr. Krueger began with a friendly grin. "Remember when you declined to work for me once, and I told you we would have another chance down the road, given the time? Now it appears our time has come."

Austin stopped. His eyes bore into the other man's. "Why did you disappear? I want to know why. You were head of the department; you had respect, prestige, promising research you hadn't even completed. You left your wife, Emil. She thought she lost her husband, and she had nothing to bury. She was sick about it."

The older man sighed tiredly and turned to face Austin. "It truly wasn't by design. The plane really did go down, and I was detained for some time. Any story of a flaming wreck was invented by others. By the time I made it back to the States, four years had passed and Hilda had moved on with her life, and so I chose to move on with mine. It was an opportunity to start over, for both of us." He motioned ahead of them and began walking again. Austin stepped along beside him. "I made new contacts, new friends. I have become highly successful, as you can see. So I can't say I regret the outcome. You certainly didn't miss me for long. You still graduated under Dr. Lieberman as your advisor, didn't you? And you moved on as well. You started your own company."

"Yes, eventually. That doesn't mean I didn't miss your guidance. I looked up to you, Doctor."

Dr. Krueger laughed gently. "Time moves one direction, Austin. That time is dead. We, who live, move on." He grinned up at his former student. "I want to talk about now. I've followed your career over the years, you know. The last I knew, superconductor research was still your primary focus. When did you move into genetics?"

Austin shrugged and kept walking. "I've dabbled in many fields. I was involved in a virology and gene splicing project just last year."

"Were you? And not since then? What stopped you from continuing until now?"

Now Austin laughed shortly. "I prefer to live. That effort was highly incompatible with my first objective."

"So what brings you back to the field this time? Not a death wish, I would hope."

"Revenge."

The old professor raised an eyebrow. "Intriguing. May I ask, on whom?"

Austin smiled tightly. "Someone at my former company inadvertently mutated the HB2 synthetic virus and made it effective. Someone else killed him over it and attempted to sell it to the Thorne Foundation. I stepped in and hijacked that effort. Here I am." He glanced at Dr. Krueger. "Do you still want me on board?"

Now the older man stopped walking to engage in a round of hearty laughter. "You never change, Austin James! Such a pistol, such gall! I love you like a son." He was smiling broadly when he clasped both of Austin's shoulders and looked him over again. "Meeting you again, now, I can't tell you how fitting it is. You and I think alike, so I won't bore you with talk of fate, but it is tempting to see it that way. Your timing is excellent."

"How is it excellent, Doctor?"

Dr. Krueger turned to face him with a conspiratorial smile. "I have a very important project now, a groundbreaking scientific mission that has the potential to change the world as we know it. It is already in progress, and has been for a number of years. But it needed help. No one has been able to provide that help. Not until now." His deep-set brown eyes shone with excitement behind his wire glasses. "I am going to bring you in, right in to the middle of it. You and I, working together, side by side. After all these years! We will change history, Austin. There is no one I would rather bring on board. Your mind and my ambition are second to none."

The wind whipped Austin's hair forward and he turned to stand at Dr. Krueger's side, looking out at the lake waters and sending his hair backwards again. Soberly, he said, "I'm not sure I understand the aim of your ambition, Dr. Krueger. Tell me about it. You want me to purify the HB2 mutation in the squash seed. Then what?"

"Then reproduce the results in lab-grown squash. Make sure it carries over to the F2 generation seed."

"Let's say it does. And then?"

"Then the pre-clinical trials will be done, and the best part begins." The old professor clapped a hand on Austin's back once and then looked at him intently. "Tell me, Austin, have you ever in your life longed for a progeny?"

"You mean a prodigy?"

Dr. Krueger laughed. "You amuse me. No, I have something much bigger in mind, something worthy of your gifts. Think about it: a child, guaranteed to be endowed with all of your unique intellectual attributes, raised according to your principles, doing the work you do but carrying it on to the next generation. With the proper grooming and education, on a large scale, this could be the beginning of a new race of thinkers, scholars, leaders. And it all starts with you."

Austin set his jaw, watched the whitecaps on the distant water fold over themselves onto the gravelly beach down the slope below them. He turned his gaze to his old professor. "Doctor, if you're talking about cloning, we already know it has faults. Animal studies are showing us that even if it produces living offspring, which is a feat in itself, that offspring is handicapped. In the human gamete, the spindle is too close to the nucleus to—"

"No, no, no. Not cloning, Austin. Not at all. Think of the method used with the squash."

"The HB2 is saddled to the desired gene on the pollen, which is then infused into the nuclei of the ovule, where it convinces the other cells to reproduce itself until the gene pattern is established throughout the organism, resulting in the desired phenotype, the outward gene expression."

"Exactly."

Austin rubbed his hand over his face. "But that method assumes there is an ovule to receive the pollen."

Dr. Krueger looked maddeningly amused now. "Which I believe defines the phenomenon of sexual reproduction, yes."

Austin muttered something under his breath that the wind carried off without Dr. Krueger hearing. He turned a wry expression on the older man. "You're seriously pursuing a human breeding project. Isn't that a little ghoulish?"

Dr. Krueger's smile faded. "I see." He began walking on the cracked cobblestone path again, parallel to the shoreline. "Not many are revolutionary enough in their thinking to come on board with this research. I can understand your misgivings."

"You do realize that what you're proposing is illegal in this country."

"Yes, I do. That is why most of the work is being done elsewhere. But listen—it's not the same as what those ideological fools did once in the past—"

"No?" Austin cut in acidly.

The old professor clapped a hand on his shoulder and shook it lightly. "You're too young to be so jaded. No, it's not. This is simply another arm of the in vitro work already in progress. This is respected work. The only difference is the infusion of a particular set of intelligence-linked genes, to give the offspring an advantage, almost from conception. Nothing else is disrupted in the slightest. It is nothing like cloning, Austin. Surely you can see it. I am offering you the opportunity to provide not only the superior genome, but to be integrally involved in the primary clinical trial of the program."

"I suppose you have a roster of surrogates lined up." He walked and looked straight ahead, his face unreadable.

"There are interested parties, certainly. But only one who has been adequately screened and prepared here at the Thorne Foundation. She has been eagerly anticipating her participation in the project."

Austin released a breath before he answered. "Amber Jezic."

"Yes." Dr. Krueger studied his former student's profile with concern. "You are not in agreement with this."

"I'll need to think about it."

"I see." The older man nodded and they walked a few yards in silence before he added, "You know, the HB2 is the key component, the one obstacle to our success. I financed Erich to set up the Thorne Foundation especially to obtain the HB2, or at least perhaps to replicate it somehow. I directed Erich to contact members of the California project. Only Carl Sykes was still living and in possession of the project archive. We were hopeful he would be the one we were seeking, to complete the development of the virus, and disappointed to find him less than capable."

Austin grunted at that assessment.

"Not many geneticists are both capable and willing to contribute. And here we have you, our greatest hope, and not even a true geneticist. How ironic. I am sorry if the scope of the project is too much for you. As I said, you are my first choice. But I have no doubt another vast intellect out there will serve us, should you choose to decline."

Austin turned a level gaze to him. "Not so fast. I haven't rejected your proposal yet, Dr. Krueger. I just said I needed to think about it."

The professor stopped again. "You are by far my first choice for this, Austin. I mean this sincerely. What can I do to bring you on board? I will pay you anything you ask."

"Erich's given me money and a lab. That's not what I want."

"Then, what?"

"Take Amber off the project."

There was a startled pause before Dr. Krueger answered him. "Forgive me, but perhaps you don't understand how difficult it is to obtain a subject for this endeavor who is willing and knowledgeable, as well as scientifically disinterested. Miss Jezic meets all the criteria and has had extensive experience in this area as well. What is your objection to her?"

Austin blinked. "Nothing against Amber," he said lightly as he began to walk again. "It's just that, knowing now the nature of this project, I have someone else in mind. She's less scientifically disinterested, but that may be considered an advantage, from where I stand."

"And you can say with certainty she is willing to undertake this role, and all its demands?"

It was the highest magnitude lie he had ever uttered with a straight face. "I have no doubt. Allow me forty-eight hours for instruction and preparation and I believe we will have our candidate."

Dr. Krueger cast his gaze out over the turbulent waters of the great lake and didn't immediately answer, although he chuckled lightly to himself. Then he turned back to Austin, a grim smile on his face and a light in his eyes. "Very well, I cast myself before your judgement. Since you have a personal stake in this, I accept your recommendation. But Austin, let me be clear right now about my expectations."

"I'm listening."

The older man lifted a finger and lightly tapped Austin's chest. "We will work out our details and gather our resources. But once the agreement has been reached and the contract signed, there is no going back. Remember what I told you: time moves only one direction."

"I understand."

Dr. Krueger nodded. His smile flattened. "I hope you do," he replied, and he turned away to climb the stairs to the patio.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

 _Josephine, let go!"_

It was a memory that still, more than a year later, came back to haunt Mickey's dreams at night sometimes, as vivid as it though it were yesterday. She could still feel the crushing, two-handed grip around her throat of an adorable orangutan, genetically enhanced and murderously jealous. And Austin's shout—where had he come from?—ordering the animal off of her, came moments shy of making no difference.

Then all at once she was breathing again, lying on the floor and gasping raggedly while the spots cleared from her eyes enough to see Austin executing a flawless Viennese waltz with the ape in his arms. While _The Blue Danube_ played from speakers up in the warehouse rafters, he was dancing his way steadily away from Mickey and back to the safety of Josephine's cage. And he had always insisted he didn't know how to dance.

Now Mickey sat alone at the kitchen table pondering a small earthen pot crowded full of winking blue blossoms set in front of her—forget me nots. Fitting. They had arrived at her door just minutes after she had gone out to the mailbox and found her first severance check, and just minutes before she was due to leave the house for a scheduled lunch date. A card came attached to the plant, and though it bore no signature, there was no mistaking the author of the message: _Will you dance with me?_

It was a curious allusion for him to bring up, a reminder of a time he had narrowly saved her life, crashing his car through the door of his warehouse and then spontaneously engaging in an act outside of his experience or comfort zone. It was bold and desperate. Mickey was eternally grateful for that. And that being said, she wasn't so sure she wanted to be his dance partner.

He wasn't making some abstract request. It was a solid question, and now this lunch would represent an opportunity to let him know her answer. At the time, she had only accepted the invitation out of a combination of benign curiosity and a mean desire to enjoy a free meal. It had been extended by a most unlikely source, Austin's new affiliate and director of communications, Amber Jezic.

Mickey had fielded the call from Amber little more than thirty-six hours earlier, while she was lounging on the couch after supper Wednesday night with her broken foot propped up, sorting through enrollment materials she had obtained from the local public university. She was giving serious consideration to taking part-time employment as a bookkeeper or at a temp agency while completing a business degree. Maybe being a secretary for the rest of her career wasn't her calling. At least she was keeping her options open, and as her mother strongly asserted, twenty-nine was by no means too old to embark on a new career path.

Then the phone rang, and she reached over to pick it up, and watched her plans get muddied yet again.

"Miss Castle, I don't know if you remember meeting me a couple of weeks ago. My name is Amber Jezic, of The Thorne Foundation. How are you this evening?"

"I'm fine."

"Good. The reason for my call is I have been told you might be seeking an employment opportunity at this time, and you have been highly recommended by one of our members for a current opening with our organization."

"I'll bet. Let me guess, this particular member has figured out he misses the only secretary in the known universe willing to put up with him."

There was laughter on the line, and it sounded surprisingly candid. Amber continued warmly. "I was wondering if you would be interested in meeting for lunch this Friday, to discuss the position in more detail."

"Aren't you in Chicago?"

"I will book a flight to Phoenix if you will commit to a meeting."

Mickey frowned at the spread of college materials in front of her. "But the job would be in Chicago, right?"

"It would. And we would give you a very generous relocation stipend if you should agree to sign on."

"I don't know…"

"And twice the salary you were paid by your last employer, as well as full benefits and a quarterly bonus, depending on our holding company's stock performance."

Mickey sighed and glanced up at the television playing an old rerun in black and white from across the room, and at her mother, ensconced in a recliner, sipping tea and watching the show. "I can meet you for lunch, Miss Jezic, but I have to be honest with you, I don't have much interest in relocating right now."

"There is no reason to decide right now, Miss Castle. As long as you are willing to discuss the possibility, I will be happy to put in a reservation for Friday. We would love to have you join us. Can I schedule the lunch?"

And so the lunch was scheduled, and then the plant arrived. Mickey gave it one last doubtful look before she grabbed her purse and her keys off the kitchen counter by the fridge and left the house.

She arrived at the relatively swank bistro set in a trendy area near the university at exactly noon, and then meandered around the crowded parking lot, eventually finding a space on the street partway down the block. She had dressed up for the occasion, even if she wasn't so concerned about what kind of impression she made on Amber Jezic. She donned a print blouse with a filmy scarf and a long skirt, and spent a little more time taming her abundant curls into tidy ringlets instead of throwing on her more typical leggings and a pullover and clipping everything atop her head into a makeshift bun.

The lobby of the place was crowded with the lunch rush. Hers wasn't the only business lunch of the day, from the assortment of suits and ties, blazers and pumps, passing to either side of her. She didn't immediately see Amber Jezic. She remembered the woman as rather tall, slim, dark-haired and olive-complexioned. A few patrons loosely fit that description, but no one looked familiar. She checked her watch. It was ten minutes past twelve.

She was on her way to check at the hostess stand when she felt the rapid double-tap on her shoulder. She startled and turned quickly around. The familiar figure standing before her was not Amber.

He was smiling in that way of his where only the corners of his mouth turned up. "You're late," he said, minus his usual note of impatience.

She felt her heart surge up to her throat, and she could muster no reply. There was so much she had wanted to ask him, so much she had wanted to get off her chest over the past two weeks, but now, given the wholly unexpected chance, her mind was a blank. Instead, she stood paralyzed, frozen in a moment in which she couldn't seem to move or even draw another breath. Then she felt his arm, secure against her back, and his hands gripping her shoulders as he walked alongside her, firmly piloting her back out the front entrance of the restaurant.

"Sit," he demanded, once they were clear of the commotion of the lobby.

She glanced behind her and saw a bench there, positioned up against the building under an evergreen-colored awning. Her knees gratefully gave way and she sat. More slowly, and after a moment's observation of his subject, Austin sank down on the bench beside her.

He cocked his head at her, and the furrow between his eyebrows was deeply creased. "You feel better now?"

She let out a shaky breath. "How did you get here?" It was all she could think of to say.

"Airplane," he answered. "This morning."

She stared at him. "You don't fly."

"I don't like to fly. I make exceptions." His blue eyes were fixed on hers, his expression earnest. "It's okay if you want to hug me now. I won't stop you."

The laughter burst out of her before she could stop it. It was so apropos of him, so Austin. Anger got shoved to the backseat to be dealt with later when the most salient desire in her mind at present was to hold on to him tight and maybe never let go. She leaned into him, wrapped her arms fiercely around him, and pressed her head to his chest. Then she swallowed back the lump in her throat when she closed her eyes, listening to his heartbeat, steady and near, and felt the weight of his arms on her back, one hand thumping on it gently. Somewhere in the back of her mind she had to ask herself just how and when she had come to depend on him, on his presence in her life, so acutely. That it had happened was undeniable. When and how must have been an insidious process, attained over the course of each adventure, each all-nighter, under the radar and totally unconscious up until the day he'd ripped it from her.

"How'd you break your foot?" he asked into her hair.

Her sentimental moment was effectively vaporized. She cringed and pushed herself back upright, loathe to answer, her face flushing pink. A trove of bad feelings came attached to that story, from anger and physical pain, to—by now—embarrassment.

He studied her face for a beat, and then drew more erect, looking mildly scandalized. "You kicked my door?!"

She threw him a peeved look, remembering they had some air to clear. "You weren't there. It could have been your shin."

The wheels of his mind were turning. "Oh," he murmured, "so that's where you were. I wondered about that."

"So why didn't you call?" she demanded.

"It's a long story. Let's get lunch first."

"I'm not hungry."

His eyes rolled as he stood back up. "Of course you're hungry. You skipped breakfast. Let's have lunch, but not here. We'll talk where we can be comfortable." He looked down at her. She was still seated. He offered a hand up. "Okay?"

She only sighed and didn't answer, but she did take his hand and let him lead the way to his car, a rental. It was a late model, wood-paneled station wagon.

* * *

"This is where you want to have lunch?"

They sat parked in the driveway of Mickey's house, with a takeout bag of sub sandwiches between them and beverages in the cup holders. Without an answer, Austin snatched up the bag and his drink, stood and slipped the keys into his pocket, and made a beeline for the front door. Mickey trailed after him with her drink.

She turned the key in the lock and let them inside, and he entered first and proceeded immediately to the kitchen. If he noticed the pot of flowers garnishing the center of the table, he didn't say so. He set the bag beside them and extracted the sandwiches, setting each to a place at the table opposite each other. Mickey retrieved napkins and placed them, and then, still without a word, they sat down.

Austin raised his cup with its plastic lid and straw. "What shall we toast?"

She frowned at him, feeling unduly irritable. "You don't toast with fast food cups and soda."

"You're right," he said, standing. "I'll get goblets and wine. I'm betting your mother keeps a bottle of red in the fridge."

Mickey bit into her sandwich. "Help yourself."

In a moment, Austin had returned to the table, bearing the expected bottle of red wine and two stemmed glasses. He poured into both, and handed one to Mickey. "The ancient Greeks came up with the practice," he said, holding his glass aloft and gazing into its contents with a fair amount of interest. "It served to assure the guests that the host hadn't poisoned the wine, if he drank of it in front of them. It established a sense of trust."

Mickey paused in chewing. "I don't think Mom poisoned the wine."

He smiled, but didn't answer. He set down the glass and turned his eyes on her instead. He waited until she noticed, straightened, and set down the rest of her sandwich.

"Austin, what?" she exclaimed wearily.

"When I was seventeen years old," he began, leaning back in his chair, "I was about to enter my dissertation year at MIT. And I had an advisor, a very trusted, very personally important mentor to me, who asked me to quit."

Mickey's eyebrows lifted.

"He wanted me to come with him overseas, where he was going to start up a company working on cutting edge genetic mapping. It was a very new field, very exciting. And it was an opportunity that wouldn't wait." Austin glanced at the wine glass, but picked up the fast food cup instead and took a sip from the straw. "I thought about it, talked to my parents, but in the end, I told him no."

"You wanted to stay and finish your doctorate," Mickey offered softly.

"No," he said shortly. "I wanted to go. My father about had a stroke. He threatened me with public high school followed by military academy."

Mickey giggled. "Just like parents of headstrong teenagers everywhere."

"No different," Austin agreed with a smile. Then he sobered. "So I stayed. I finished my degree, and Dr. Krueger left like he planned to on a flight for this great new opportunity, and he was never heard from again. His plane went down somewhere over western Asia."

"Oh, Austin," Mickey breathed. "That could have been you."

"Except he didn't die," he said pointedly. "I certainly thought he did; everyone thought so." He stopped, sipped on his straw again, and swallowed with a grimace before continuing his story. "And now, after sixteen years, I've run into him again." He smiled, but it was humorless, and his eyes were seeing some distant thing.

For a moment, Mickey sat frowning, considering the unlikely reunion. "You found him working with the Thorne Foundation, too?"

Austin pushed back from the table and stood up, pacing restlessly across the kitchen toward the sink, and then made a perpendicular turn toward the refrigerator. "He _is_ the Thorne Foundation." He picked up an acorn-shaped magnet off the fridge, examined it, replaced it, and doubled back and paced again past the sink. "The organization he's been running all these years bankrolls the Foundation, as well as several other groups. They've been taking genetic engineering to a whole new level, and they're not breeding squash." Then he roughly pulled open a drawer and poked around at the cooking utensils in it, looking as though the wooden spoons and plastic spatulas repulsed him.

Mickey sat silently, watching him. She frowned determinedly. "Austin, can I ask you something?"

He stopped tinkering long enough to look up at her, wariness in his eyes. Then he returned his attention to the drawer. "Go ahead. Ask."

"You left Serendip because you found out The Thorne Foundation already had Edgar Johnson's seed, right? And you wanted to recover it before it got used."

His eyes snapped back to hers, lit up with surprise.

"Don't look at me like you can't believe I got it right," she grumped. "I've had a lot of time to think about this, and believe it or not, you're not as hard to figure out as you think you are. My question is: why didn't you tell me your plan?" Her eyes were skewering him. "The truth."

He blinked and let out an audible breath, and then he shut the utensil drawer and returned to his seat at the table. He settled into his chair and fixed his eyes on hers, his face an unreadable mask. "You want to know the truth? I didn't want to tell you about it; I knew you wouldn't like it. I was a coward." His lip curled up with what might have been a little self-reproach.

A look of clear skepticism crossed Mickey's face. "A coward! Austin, I know you and you're not afraid of what I think. You're not afraid of what anyone thinks, especially when you know you're right. It's practically your trademark. 'I'm Austin James, certified know-it-all, I'm right; you're wrong'."

The unreadable mask fell away and he stared at her, openly baffled. "I'm trying to level with you."

"Try harder," she shot back. "You haven't hit the truth yet."

His expression darkened and he sat back, folding his arms over his chest. "Alright, I'll be explicit. I knew that leaving Serendip meant leaving you without a job. It would upset you and cause an argument. I didn't want the argument, so I left without telling you. That's it, Mickey, nothing deeper, I promise."

The look of disbelief deepened, and was augmented by a scowl. "Then why didn't you just head for the hills after avoiding me all day? You made a clean break. Why come to my house, and call my pager, looking for me before you left? You must have had something on your mind."

"No. It was worth the argument to come and say goodbye; I was just waiting until it was too late to undo anything."

"You know that is one of the dumbest things you've ever done, don't you?" He had his mouth open to refute that declaration, but she rushed on, cutting him off, propelled by two weeks' worth of confusion and hurt. "You had to have known I would've gone along with you. I might have had doubts, but I would've gone. Job or no job, I would have dropped everything and tagged along to help you out, just like I always do!"

"I never expected you—"

"And I thought we were friends. My mistake; it really was just the job, wasn't it?"

He straightened and pulled back, whatever he had been about to say abruptly dismissed. He just looked at her, his mouth hanging open a little bit.

"Here's what I think. You saved it all up for the last minute because you wanted to make sure it was too late for me to come along. Admit it! You did it because you didn't want me there. You dropped me like you dropped Serendip."

He colored and stood up again, turning away and bracing his hands on the kitchen counter at the sink, facing the window overlooking the backyard. Mickey didn't know whether that constituted an admission, but the fight had gone out of him. He wasn't offering anymore rebuttals.

"So why are you back now?" she asked more gently. "Were you just feeling guilty? You thought getting me another job would make you feel like less of a coward?"

He continued to face the window.

"I'll be alright, you know. There's a lot of work for secretaries, and I'm even thinking of going back to school. You don't have to feel like you owe me something. If you really just need another secretary, then why not let Amber help you find one? She's perfectly qualified to hire the position, and she's already there."

He turned around to face her, and an agitation she hadn't realized was there was now evident in his strained expression and heightened color. "This isn't about a job!" he cried. "When was I ever looking for a secretary? Never! I let Serendip keep you on; how else was I going to keep you coming back? You're the catalyst to get me to the solutions, to find the missing answers. I don't know what it is about you; you've always been able to see the things I don't." He filed his hands through his hair and paced again to the other end of the kitchen. "That's what got me on a plane to get back here. I have a big problem, Mickey, and I can't fix it. The more I try, the deeper I get sucked into it. It's like a tar pit. Now I'm pulling in millions of dollars working on an illegitimate project and agreeing to do things that go against everything I believe in, and I can't stop it. I'm here to beg a favor, okay? I need a partner; somebody I can trust." He ended, looking a little breathless, with his jaw clenched and lips pressed together.

Mickey stared at him, too stunned by his confession to say anything and not sure whether she was more disturbed by his uncharacteristic loss of confidence or heartened by his uncharacteristic praise. They seemed to be stuck in a stalemate, neither one venturing to speak until he finally returned to the table, eyes downcast, and dropped down heavily into his chair. He looked defeated. He looked scared.

"I shouldn't have said that," she said quietly, absently rubbing a spot on the table that might have been a crack in the veneer or maybe dirt. "I know it's not about a job. I was angry."

He shrugged, still looking elsewhere. "You're entitled."

"Maybe I am." She flicked a glance up at him. "But I'm still sorry."

When she looked up again, he was watching her, a glimmer in his eyes of something approaching hope.

"Are you in any danger?"

His lip pushed out a little and he looked away. "Not yet."

"Not yet," she repeated. She breathed out a soft sigh and reached for her wine goblet. She looked at it, looked at him, and lifted the glass. "Okay, I've got a toast," she said. "To safe travel; how soon do we leave?"

He hesitated.

"Come on, Austin! I want to help you get this fixed. I'm done being mad at you. Now I'm back to being worried about you. Let me come with." She waited, and though he didn't say anything, he wasn't voicing any opposition, either. There was only one thing left to resolve. Her smile muted into a more solemn expression. "But if you ever run off on me like that again, you're on your own, okay?"

A reluctant smile crept onto his face and he shook his head. Then he lifted his glass and met her eyes, and something reassuringly close to his cocky self-assurance had returned to his bearing. "It's a red eye; leaves tonight."

The two glasses clinked and the wine was sipped.

* * *

Late in the night, under the low red lights of the cabin and the steady hum of the engines of an O'Hare-bound 737, Mickey shifted in her reclined window seat toward her center seat companion and pulled the woven lap blanket up higher on her chest. Her eyes were closed and her mind adrift when she heard the low rumble of Austin's voice next to her.

"I never expected you to come."

She stirred again. "Hmm?"

"Without Serendip, I assumed you were done working for me. That's why I didn't tell you."

Now her eyes cracked open, and she raised them to look into the shadowed face mostly in silhouette against pale red backlighting. "Well," she murmured simply, "you assumed wrong." She closed her eyes again, smiled inwardly at the rare delight of informing him that her perception was the correct one, and drifted back toward slumber.

She may have already been dreaming, but she thought she heard him speak again, low, barely audible over the engine drone. "I see that now. I'm sorry, Mick."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Aside from the nagging heaviness behind her eyes, reminding her she had spent most of the night sleeping while cramped into the confines of an airplane seat, Mickey was feeling quietly content. She sat on an uppermost concrete ledge with her legs dangling toward the next lower tier of the multilevel shoreline path that wound its way from the Adler Planetarium behind her, with its waffled, silver dome, jutting out on a bulbous peninsula into the lake, toward Grant Park, a sprawling green space highlighted by the colossal Buckingham Fountain near its center. Before her, she could see the rounded, marble-pillared backside of the Shedd Aquarium, and well beyond that the jagged skyline of the city crowding close up against the boundaries of the park. To her right, the choppy, slate blue waters of Lake Michigan were dotted with tall sailboats and stubby motor boats out past the concrete breaker wall that hemmed in the shipyard, and far away, a flat barge coasted the misty horizon where water met sky at some indistinct terminus.

She closed her eyes and lifted her face to the mid-morning sun climbing up over the lake. She inhaled deeply the crisp blowing air, and then glanced down to her left. Austin sat, or rather sprawled beside her. His feet were also dangling past the ledge, but the rest of him was lying back on the grassy lawn at the perimeter of the planetarium grounds, his arms thrust out to his sides. He was wearing dark glasses, and a blue baseball cap pulled low over his forehead, largely concealing a set of headphones over his ears. He had parked the station wagon near the planetarium and walked to this spot, and then said to give him an hour, since sleeping on an airplane had apparently not been an option for him. Staying awake any longer than he already had was not in anyone's best interests.

"Where have you been staying, Austin?" she had reasonably wanted to know as he cruised the aisles of the lot, searching for an opening. Even early in the morning, parking was a gamble on a Saturday in the tourist district. "Why don't we just go there?"

He gave his head a stiff shake. "I'm not taking you there today," he insisted. "We'll go tomorrow. Today belongs to me."

She hadn't asked him further about it, though she had wanted to. It was such a marked departure from the warehouse back in Phoenix, which had been to him not only a workplace and his residence, but his refuge from the rest of the world as well. Wherever he was living and working at present he was treating as a veritable prison.

"Where are we staying tonight?"

"Hotel. Check in isn't until after three." He stole a glance at his watch on his right wrist. "I'm going to need to sleep before then."

He had stopped at a bakery on Division Street for jelly rolls and coffee after they had left the airport, and beyond that, with the day sunny and warm, and the walkway pleasantly populated with morning joggers, out-of-town sightseers, and local characters, Mickey was kept well occupied during the time it took Austin to recharge.

It was approaching noon when he awoke with a start, sat up, and pulled off his head gear. "It's late," he exclaimed, looking at the sky before checking his watch.

Mickey had moved further into the grass, where she was sitting cross-legged and sipping on a frozen lemonade purchased from a vendor down the path closer to the aquarium. She got her immobilizer boot under her and pushed up off the grass to her feet, rejoining Austin at the ledge. "You slept almost three hours," she told him, lowering herself back beside him. "Want a frozen lemonade?"

"No thanks."

Mickey squinted out toward the open lake, which was now glaring bright with the sun bursting in dazzling sparkles on the peaks of the churning waves. "I've never seen a lake this big," she murmured. "It looks like an ocean."

Austin frowned. "The high salinity of ocean water extends the delay time of whitecap decay. This lake water has exponentially fewer whitecaps and steeper wave gradients than an ocean. They are actually not similar." He received an elbow to the flank for his offering. "What?"

She smiled at him. "Same old Austin James." Then she giggled at the confused look that followed. "So," she said, sitting back enough to pull up her knees so she could encircle her legs with her arms, "are you going to tell me about this job I'm taking at the Thorne Foundation? I still don't know what I'm supposed to be doing."

Austin straightened and held up a chiding finger. "You are not working for them, Mickey. Absolutely not."

"Alright, then who am I supposed to be when you show up with me tomorrow?"

"My personal employee."

Mickey smiled. "Oh yeah? How much are you paying me?"

Austin cocked his head at her. "How much are you asking?"

"Well," she said, tamping down the smile as much as she could, "Amber was offering twice my Serendip salary, full benefits, and stock options."

"I'll give you a tenth of what they're giving me."

She raised an eyebrow. "That sounds like more than Amber's offer."

"It is," he said dryly, eyes trained on the horizon. His own smile was struggling against restraint.

"And when you ditch this job…?" she prompted.

"We go broke together," he answered shortly, before turning to look at her and smiling plainly. "Then I can give you a tenth of the accrued debt, and you can work for me managing the other ninety per cent."

"That's generous."

They left the lakeside shortly after that and drove into downtown, parking underground and coming up on Michigan Avenue in search of lunch. Austin found a café with outdoor seating a couple of blocks down one of the side streets which suited the purpose.

"Did you find out for sure that Erich has the seed?" Mickey asked between bites of club sandwich.

Austin nodded and swallowed. "He has it; it was one of my stipulations for joining him."

Mickey lowered her sandwich back to her plate as she studied him intently and momentarily left her lunch forgotten. "You didn't happen to steal it from Mr. Sykes that day we went to his office, did you?"

"No. I never even found it."

"Maybe not, but he sure thinks you did, and he's pretty mad about it."

Now Austin's sandwich was set down, and he gave her a sharp look. "When did Carl Sykes talk to you?"

"The last day I was at Serendip, a week ago Friday." Mickey answered. "Graham called me to see him, and Sykes was there. At the time, I thought it was just his file from the California project that went missing. I wasn't thinking about the seed. Do you know who took it?"

His eyes closed momentarily. "It was me; in a way, but not directly. It was Amber who got it, with a little help."

The scheme had been concocted that Thursday night after Graham's party, when Erich and Amber had come to Austin's warehouse. Erich had come to Phoenix fully intending to acquire the seed, which Sykes had indeed put on the auction block, but after his encounter with Austin, he had changed his mind about dealing with Sykes. The problem remained: how to gain possession of the seed and cut Sykes out of the deal.

The answer had come in the form of Amber Jezic, who called Sykes' secretary, Diana Federspiel, early Friday morning and scheduled an appointment with the secretary, not Sykes, for an issue pertaining to Mr. Sykes, but worthy of the personal assistant's scrutiny first.

Amber had met with Diana at a casual diner over the secretary's lunch break to present a highly tantalizing offer. "You drive a Mustang convertible, white," Amber began, smiling benignly, as soon as drinks had been ordered.

Diana nodded stiffly and picked up her water glass. "Yes. So?"

"Under the driver's seat right now is a manila envelope containing $100,000, cash. If you want it, it's yours; no questions asked."

The secretary swallowed the bolus of the water already in her mouth hard and set the glass down with a sharp clank on the table. She cleared her throat. "Why?" she finally stammered.

"I have a client who wants something from your boss, but the usual route has been unsuccessful. If you can get what he wants, you can open the passenger door of the black BMW parked next to you on your driver's side and drop it on the seat. If you'd rather not, kindly drop the manila envelope instead with its contents intact. Either way, as long as one or the other appears in our vehicle, you can be assured my client will not attempt to contact you again."

Diana didn't immediately answer, and some concern was brewing in Amber's mind that Austin James may have inaccurately assumed the woman's price. And then she was speaking again. "How can I be sure this won't come back to me? Everyone knows I have full access to Mr. Sykes' office when he's not there; I know where he keeps everything important to his concerns."

It was like magic. Amber grinned, paused long enough to extend her gratitude to the waitress upon the delivery of her cosmopolitan, and then take it up and sip of it before she returned to the efficacious conversation. "Do you recall a recent, unscheduled encounter between Mr. Sykes and Austin James, immediately preceded by a summons causing you to leave your post?"

Diana's drink sat untouched as she stared openly at Amber. "That was you?"

"No, but that is your alibi. What better opportunity would Mr. James have to spirit away a little file folder and a canister of seed? He's made it no secret he wants to get his hands on it." She raised her glass and sipped again. The deal was as good as done.

* * *

"You incriminated yourself!" Mickey cried when he finished the story.

Austin gave that a noncommittal shrug. "It's all circumstantial; after all, I didn't actually take it, so it can't be proven true. And anyway, Sykes will never report it stolen. It's illegal material and it's a direct link between him and the murder of Edgar Johnson."

"So what's the problem now? The Thorne Foundation has the seed, and you've infiltrated the Thorne Foundation."

He leaned forward with his elbows on the table, resting his chin on his interlaced fingers. "I thought I could get it as soon as I started the work for them. That was the idea. As it turns out, they have a more suspicious nature than I was expecting. So far, they've only given me a portion of the seed to work with, and I can only use it in tandem with either Erich or Dr. Krueger. The rest is locked up in Erich's personal quarters. They have the whole place rigged like a prison camp," he complained bitterly. He sat upright again, hands in his lap. "They have every room I frequent—the lab, my personal bedroom and living areas—under visual and auditory surveillance. I wouldn't be surprised if they slipped a bug into the sensory deprivation tank." He shook his head, flummoxed. "Erich knows what is supposed to be happening in the lab, and he's watching like a hawk, writing down everything pertinent to the project. I won't be able to sabotage the mutated HB2 without some kind of outside distraction."

Mickey smiled and picked up her sandwich again. "Is that where I fit in?"

In answer, Austin only became graver. "That's a part of it, yes."

"What's the other part?" She bit into the sandwich.

He looked at his watch. "It's getting close to 3:00. Finish your lunch and let's check in at the hotel." He beheld her look of impatience at his blatant evasion. "I don't want to spoil your lunch," he shot back, and he stood quickly, swiping the check off the table and hurrying away to the cashier counter.

Austin remained closemouthed on the subject until after they had ascended the lakefront high rise hotel to the twenty-third floor, where he had chosen a two-room corner suite. He passed directly through the front room with its kitchenette on the left and living room on the right, to the bedroom at the rear of the suite, with its panoramic view of the patchwork façades of the surrounding skyscrapers. There, he deposited Mickey's heavy garment bag across the end of a sprawling king-sized bed with a grunt. He stood by one of the windows, pulled the drapes back further, and gazed out.

Mickey made her way more slowly through the rooms, lugging her suitcase in one hand and her purse over the other shoulder. She dropped both against the wall a short distance behind Austin. Then she stepped up next to him and also looked out the window. Far below, the streets and parking lots were crowded with cars, moving about like windup toys from such a distance. Pedestrian traffic, even smaller, dotted the sidewalks. They were high enough in the hotel to look down upon the rooftop gardens of the lower condominiums on the next block.

"It's pretty from up here," she commented.

Austin had a look of appreciation on his face, smiling slightly. He pointed up a bit higher on the window than Mickey had been looking. "Look at that," he murmured.

She turned her gaze upward and startled backward a step. "Ew, spiders!" Sure enough, suspended outside the window from silken strands and swaying precariously in the near-constant wind were a half dozen large, plump-bodied and slender-legged arachnids of varying sizes.

Austin turned to look at her, smiling delightedly. "Even this high up, they make their way and live off whatever else crawls or flies up here. Nature triumphs!"

His smile faded and he let out a breath and simultaneously let go of the drapes. He stood looking at her for a moment, pensive and maybe troubled. "I need to tell you more about Dr. Krueger before I can tell you what kind of work Thorne thinks you're doing." He closed his eyes for a moment. "Where do I start?"

Mickey crossed in front of him and sat down on the edge of the bed, looking up at him, patiently expectant. "Start at the beginning," she suggested.

He nodded his agreement, turned his back to the spiders, and sat on the window ledge across from her.

"I met Emil Krueger when I was fourteen, and he agreed to be my graduate advisor. My concentration was electromagnetic research—everything from cryogenics to dark matter. Dr. Krueger was a different field entirely, biochemistry and genetics. He was busy trying to sequence DNA in haemophilus influenzae while I was trying to figure out how to innervate artificial limbs with synthetic polymers."

Mickey sighed. "I think you lost me already, Austin."

He made a wry face. "Well," he said, thinking a moment before proceeding. "Suffice it to say, we didn't have much in common, research-wise. But he was a patient advisor, given my age and my level of maturity. He stepped up and took me on when no one else would." He stopped and took note of Mickey's knowing smile. "Sure, that you can follow." He shook his head. "He's the one who got me to try the sensory deprivation tank for sleep. He said the conventional float tank was unnecessary and would just sap my energy, so we did a dry version. Later, when we'd disagree on something or I'd pull attitude on him he'd tell me to 'go tell it to your tank, kid'! He was like another father to me, in a way. In some ways, I had more in common with him than with my own father. So when it came time to embark on my doctoral thesis and design that prosthetic limb I'd been theorizing, and Dr. Krueger wanted me to take time out to help him unravel the building blocks of life on Earth, it was a tough call." He stopped.

"Austin?" Mickey prompted. She could have predicted what he would do next. She even shifted around to face the foot of the bed.

He was on his feet and pacing down around the bed and toward the living room, stopping in the threshold to turn around again. "Something happened after that plane went down," he mused, "maybe even before."

"What do you think happened?"

"I don't know," he exclaimed, throwing his hands up and dropping them back to his sides. "Maybe his rescuers were a bad influence. Maybe he was the bad influence who finally found the right audience. Whatever it was, he's come back now fully convinced that he can make his mark on history by breeding the right kind of thinking into future generations. What he's proposing is nothing less than weaponized science."

Mickey quietly considered this before answering. "What you said earlier, about Dr. Krueger not breeding squash, is that what you were talking about? Is he planning to use the HB2 to make super-humans? Do you think it's a Soviet plot?"

The pacing began again in earnest. Austin reached the windows again before he answered. "Who knows who he's aligned himself with? We could spend all day hypothesizing about how he came up with the idea. He was a compulsory member of Hitler's Youth in his childhood in Germany, but that was everybody in his age group, in that time and place. He never talked about it outright, but with what he's doing now…"

Mickey frowned. "You think you're working for Nazis?"

"No!" Austin sat down again on the ledge. "But it does kind of resemble that thinking, in a way," he conceded reluctantly. "A superior race, selectively bred for leadership and influence." A brief flash of horror crossed his face. "Maybe I am working for Nazis."

Impatiently, Mickey reached out and shook his knee. "Then stop. Just get out. Are they out to kill you or something?"

It was almost frightening, the look of helpless despair that descended on him. "It's worse than that, Mickey. That human breeding project he wants to start, he's got my DNA to build it."

"What are you talking about?"

"If this squash project is successful, and so far I see nothing that tells me it won't be, then the mutated HB2 will be purified and ready to saddle to the desired genes." He looked up. "Mine. And if I walk away now, he still has the mutated HB2 and my genetic material, to reproduce my intelligence in some sort of breeding houses overseas endlessly. I can't leave, Mickey, not until I've collected and destroyed all of that seed!"

"Austin?"

"Yeah?"

"You still haven't told me what my part in this is. What am I supposed to do?"

"Before Dr. Krueger takes this technology back to Europe with him, he has this idea that he's gifting me with a progeny, sort of a test sample of one. Amber was being groomed to assist with this, but I convinced Dr. Krueger that I'd only participate if I could name the co-contributor."

"Co-contributor? Austin, what do I know about genetics?"

He didn't seem to hear her. "In genetics," he continued, "germination can happen in test tubes; that's not difficult. But aside from microorganisms, all life forms have to be planted eventually, to reach maturity. They all require incubation." He stopped and watched her, waiting for the light to dawn. It didn't take long.

"Are you telling me—"

"Now don't get excited—"

"—you _volunteered_ me—"

"I lied. I absolutely, completely lied."

"You said I would carry your baby?!"

"It's never going to happen!" he interjected emphatically, holding out his hands in a placating way. "Mickey, I only said that because I didn't want Amber involved. She's brainwashed far enough into this madness to go along with it; I knew you'd be shrewd enough to pretend and sane enough to refuse. I am not insinuating anything. Neither one of us would go along with something like that. I just need more time to try and get all the seed."

"And what if you can't? What's your backup plan?" she demanded, applying all her self-control to keeping her seat.

He raised a hand to his forehead and rubbed his eyes. "I don't know. I had this idea of making my DNA undesirable to Krueger, like if I had some hereditary disease, something like that. But I can't just invent one and expect him to buy it. And it has to be something that isn't isolated to just one or two genes, something harder to track."

"How about the seed you're growing right now. Is there anything you can do to keep it from being successful, to convince them it won't work?"

"Not without being noticed. Erich and Dr. Krueger aren't convinced I'm completely on board; that's why they're watching me so closely. I won't be able to do anything unless I get a little space. Amber just thinks I'm crazy."

Mickey smiled humorlessly. "Lots of people think you're crazy, Austin. I think I spent more time as your secretary defending your sanity than I did forwarding your career." She blew her bangs off her forehead. Austin didn't reply, and after a moment, she turned to look at him and was surprised to find him staring at her, smiling in fascinated rapture, his eyes alight with some new revelation. She raised an eyebrow.

"Mickey," he exclaimed, grasping her arms near the shoulders in growing excitement, "you're a genius!" He pulled her in and squeezed her tight, but the embrace lasted all of a split second before he was on the move. "Get your purse," he called, already making rapid strides toward the entrance of the suite with his car keys dangling in his hand. "We've got work to do!"


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

In the dim early dawn, hovering at the threshold between dreaming and wakefulness, Mickey's mind wandered back home, to the last conversation she'd had with her mother before leaving for Chicago.

Beverly Castle had stood with her arms crossed in front of her, leaning in the doorway to Mickey's room as her daughter pulled blouses and skirts, pants, and dresses out of her closet and piled them into a garment bag spread open on the bed. She continued to stand for some time, observing with a doubtful look on her face but speaking not a word, while Mickey assembled a comprehensive assortment of personal effects, darting back and forth between the bureau and the dresser, returning to the bed to stow the items into two pieces of luggage.

Mickey glanced up at her once. "The flight leaves tonight, so I have to hurry," she offered as a woefully deficient answer to Beverly's unspoken questions.

Her mother watched her another minute before choosing to say anything. When she did speak, it was pointed. "Business trip, Michelle?" She quickly held up a hand to deflect the glare that followed. "I'm not judging." She tossed a glance over her shoulder toward the hallway that led to the rest of the house. Austin was still there, out in the kitchen, waiting at a distance that must have been calculated to offer Beverly and her daughter a chance to confer privately. Her voice dropped to a near whisper. "But I do have to ask why you're packing up to go to Chicago in the middle of the night on a whim with the same man who left you jobless without an explanation less than two weeks ago." She hooked a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the kitchen. "Are you sure there's nothing going on—"

" _Mother_." The distraction was aggravating enough to pause her packing, but only briefly. "If you knew Austin at all, you'd know what a ridiculous question that is. He says he needs help; I'm helping him. I trust him."

"You trust him."

She resumed her work again, but mentally compared what she had said against what she knew to be true. She thought about Austin and his ancient Greeks and their toasts. "Yes," she concluded, "I do."

"That's not what you were saying yesterday."

"Shush." She bit back a smile. "Don't remind me." She pulled the zipper up and around the margins of her suitcase and moved on to the garment bag. "I'll call you when it's all over and tell you when I'm coming back."

Beverly was carefully suppressing her own smile. "Are you sure you'll still want to?" She cheerfully accepted a swat on the arm for the well-placed bit of sass.

It was on this thought that Mickey awoke to a nagging tug on a lock of her hair near her face. Her eyes popped open to see Austin, kneeling beside her in dim lamplight, peering down at her with a slight smile. He had been awake all night, as far as she could tell, hard at work on the phone and a cumbersome portable computer in the front portion of the suite while Mickey had retired to the bedroom by 10:30.

She heard him before she drifted off, surprised to discover from his end of the conversation he was talking to his former executive director. "Sarcasm doesn't suit you, Graham. Listen, how'd you like to do me a favor and spread a little rumor? I guarantee Serendip will materially benefit from it. No, really! Listen…"

Later, she awoke briefly to hear him muttering to himself, complaining about his makeshift computer and its intolerable limitations. But if he was tired by morning, it wasn't showing in his sharp eyes and animated movements. A shadow of dark stubble on his face and yesterday's clothes, limp and wrinkled, suggested a level of self-care beneath his usual standard.

She grimaced sleepily. "Is it morning already?" But she pushed herself upright, letting the covers fall beside her.

Austin rose to his feet. "It's show time," he said briskly. He fished in his pocket and pulled out the keys to the station wagon and handed them to her. "Remember, I'm impaired, but not all-out bat crazy. Don't overplay it. You're concerned, not scared. Now get moving."

"I'm moving," she sighed, setting the keys on the nightstand and dropping her non-booted leg over the side of the bed. She frowned at him. "Aren't you going to shower or something?"

He shook his head. "That'll ruin the effect. I'm going down to get something to eat before we leave. I want to get out of here in an hour." He set off at a rapid pace for the door, calling back to her without turning around. "Hurry up!"

From the hotel to the site of the Thorne Foundation, the grand estate called Thorne Oaks, was nearly an hour drive northward, winding along the lakeshore and well into the most wealthy suburbs of the city. Austin had Mickey drive, and navigated her to the enormous iron gates of the estate. Once there, she hesitated at the entrance to the drive, short of activating the intercom system to announce their arrival. She let out a breath, holding the steering wheel in a two-handed grip.

"Hey," Austin chirped from beside her. She glanced sidelong at him. He smiled. "Just be yourself. You'll be fine." He lifted his chin. "Let's go."

She pulled the station wagon up the circular drive and around a massive fountain, the plot well landscaped with rose bushes and sculpted shrubs and small trees. She was met at her door by a middle-aged man with exceptional posture in a navy blue suit, who opened the door for her and stepped alongside it. "Welcome to Thorne Oaks, Miss Castle," he said warmly. "And welcome back, Mr. James. The Thorne Foundation team is waiting to receive you in the formal dining room. A light breakfast is being served in ten minutes. Miss Castle, please feel free to leave the keys and your luggage, and my staff and I will see to everything for you during your meeting."

The formal dining room was a lavishly decorated space with wide, multi-tiered crown moldings and an oblong, highly polished onyx table. Most of the seats were already occupied by attendees in business attire, only two of whom Mickey recognized. At the head of the table sat the dark-haired young Erich Thorne. To his left sat his companion, Amber Jezic. She also took note of an older man with dark gray hair and wire-rimmed glasses sitting to the right of Erich, and she saw with some trepidation that the man was observing her steadily, giving her a slight nod when they established eye contact.

Then she felt Austin's hand at her back, prompting her to enter the room and proceed to sit in the empty seat next to an unfamiliar man with dark blond hair and a blue and yellow striped tie, while Austin sat at her other side, with Amber to his right.

Order was subsequently called by Erich, who rapped lightly on the side of his water glass with his fork for attention. "Now that we've all assembled," he began as a hush fell over the room, "let me be the first to welcome our newest member to the Thorne Foundation, Miss Mickey Castle. She will be serving as a special liaison to Austin James." He paused to allow the customary greetings to ensue. "And Austin, the technical team is very happy to have you back, as it appears our flowers are very near opening and should be ready for pollination by tomorrow morning." A fair amount of excitement greeted this announcement, with a smattering of applause.

Breakfast was served when Erich had finished his announcements. Platters were passed, and Austin steadfastly refused every one of them, and the drinks as well, but as far as Mickey could tell, no one seemed to notice.

It wasn't until after the pastries, fruit, eggs, and beverages had been consumed and the dishes cleared from the table that Erich leaned in front of Amber to speak to Austin in a low voice. "I suppose you'll want time to get showered and changed before we start this morning." He looked up at Mickey. "Did your flight just come in this morning? I was under the impression you got in yesterday."

"We did," Mickey confirmed, while Austin readily denied it.

"The flight, such as it was, took a very long time," he went on to complain in a clipped voice. "I had no time to change clothes."

Mickey held on to a frozen smile for Erich's benefit before turning her attention to Austin. "Now that we're back, you can go wash up. I'm sure Erich won't mind waiting." She smiled again at Erich. "He really doesn't like to fly. It bothers him."

Austin's voice dropped a notch, so that Mickey leaned her head in closer to hear him. "No one needs to know that. Do you think I smell?"

"You don't smell," she said encouragingly. "No, not yet. But maybe you should change before you get to that point." She looked anxiously again at Erich and raised her voice slightly. "I think he might rather just get back to work." The smile dropped as she turned back to Austin. "Is that what you're saying? You want to get back to work now? You decide. No one's making you do anything."

He looked at her for a protracted moment, and then he abruptly dropped his cloth napkin on the table and stood up. He held his eyes on Mickey. "I know what you're doing. I'll change if you want me to change. Is this so important to you?"

"Go change," she whispered, throwing a look toward the door. He turned and left the room without another word, and Mickey watched him until he was gone. Then she sighed quietly and picked up her glass of orange juice. From the corner of her eye, she could see she had Amber's attention.

"Miss Castle?" Amber began with some hesitance.

She finished her drink and carefully set down the glass on the white tablecloth. "Call me Mickey."

The communications director smiled. "And you may call me Amber." Her smile fell away. "If you are done eating, the genetics team is planning to go with Erich and our special guest, Dr. Krueger, back to the lab to review the progress notes from the past two days. Since it appears Austin will be occupied in his apartment for a time, perhaps I could show you your room here and we can get acquainted?"

"Certainly."

The dining room began to clear out a short time later, and Amber escorted Mickey down the expansive hallway outside the dining room to the left, opposite the direction of the laboratory personnel and Erich and his guest. They reached a gracefully curving, open staircase of marble with a carved wooden rail, a chrome chandelier adorned with tiers of dangling crystals suspended over it. From there, they ascended the stairs to the second floor and proceeded down the hallway before them to the third door on the left. Amber opened the door with a flourish and invited Mickey to enter first.

The room was expansive, open and full of light from the wall of windows directly ahead, covered with floor-length sheers. The bed was queen sized, covered in a paisley print blue and white bedspread and several layers of coordinating pillows. Mickey noticed her suitcase beside the bed and her garment bag hanging in the open armoire. She nodded her approval.

"It's a very nice room."

"It comes with an adjacent full bath," Amber added, stepping fully inside the room and motioning toward the doorway to her right. "There is a telephone on the nightstand, but it has no outside service; it is for internal use only. The laminated card here beside the phone has the extensions to reach Erich or me directly. For anything related to the room or services, just ring the bell there on the wall beside the bedside lamp if you are in need of anything at all. We have staff here twenty-four hours."

Mickey considered that and then stepped up to the bed and sat on the edge of it, facing back toward the door. "Who owns this estate, Amber? Is it Erich's?"

Amber perched on the edge of one of the two textured white fauteuil chairs decorating the room. "The home is part of the holdings of Erich's father, Percy Thorne, but he lives mostly in Italy and leaves Erich to manage the Chicago properties. Our special benefactor, Dr. Krueger, maintains the staff as well as the buildings and grounds in exchange for his free use of the property whenever he is here in this country. This was actually the family's primary residence when Erich was a child, so it's natural he would call it home." Her eyes swept over the room. "This has always been a guest room, as far as I know. Erich has a half-sister, but she remained with her mother, somewhere on the East Coast, I believe." She laughed lightly to herself. "This is an interesting subject, Mickey, but I'd rather hear your answers to some questions I have for you."

Mickey sat up a little straighter. "Okay."

"Have you participated in a surrogacy project before?"

Mickey blinked. Amber was nothing if not direct. "No. Never. Have you?"

"Yes," she replied. She glanced down. "Unfortunately, that project was not a success, but useful data was obtained." Her eyes darted back up again, dark and intent. "You do understand what you are expected to do in your work for us, don't you? Austin explained it to you fully?"

Mickey chuckled to herself, and then sobered and shot an apologetic look at Amber. "Honestly, Amber, I thought he was making it up."

"Why would you think that?"

She drew a deep breath. "Because Austin has had…" She trailed off a moment, considering her words. "We'll say, boundary issues," she decided. "Working with him is always a challenge—I constantly have to meet him wherever he is, but there are times when I need to impose boundaries. When he brought up the surrogacy idea, my first thought was he was looking for a permanent relationship again." Her eyes opened wider. "Which isn't a bad thing, in theory. Not in and of itself. It's just, with Austin…" Again, she stopped to plan her disclosure more carefully. "Don't get me wrong, he can be very nice, in his own way, and he is fascinating to work with, but at the same time…" She shrugged. "What he really needs is a handler, a caretaker. He's not really the relationship type."

Amber nodded her understanding. "What we have in mind is, at its core, a scientific endeavor. Following the surrogacy, you are under no obligation to continue the affiliation. That is a matter between you and Austin. Austin would, of course, retain full rights to the infant, and the Thorne Foundation to the developmental progress data."

Mickey tried hard to shut that thought out of her mind before it showed on her face and she pushed quickly forward. "Amber, what are you hoping to accomplish through this project?"

At that, Amber brightened. "You must know Austin has highly unusual cognitive abilities, extremely desirable. The hope is that this gift can be deliberately and consistently transferred to others through the use of advanced genetic modification. It would be an enormous asset to humankind to preserve what he has. Otherwise, when he dies, it may be decades before someone else is found with that kind of aptitude."

Mickey looked away, her brow furrowed. "I don't have much background in genetics myself. My training is secretarial, and with Austin, I've gone pretty far out of even that job description. I know he is intellectually phenomenal, but I wonder…"

After a moment, Amber frowned and prompted her to go on. "You wonder what, Mickey?"

She looked up at Amber with a worried expression. "I wonder how geneticists know what they want to transfer and what they don't. Has Austin told you anything about his background?" She bit her lip and hesitated before adding, "His general psychological background?"

"You mean his mental health?"

"Yes."

Amber shook her head. "It's well known Austin is eccentric. That has come as no surprise. Besides the surrogacy, the Thorne Foundation was also very interested in your assistance with helping us communicate with him effectively. From what he's said, it certainly sounded like you had a more personal relationship—"

"Boundaries," Mickey sighed. "Honestly, I was almost happy when he went and took off like he did without warning. I mean, sure, it left me a little at ends, but it was reassuring to see him initiate a move like that on his own."

"This has been a problem?"

Mickey's eyebrows shot upward. "A problem? Sometimes I felt like I had no life of my own. Austin can hardly go anywhere without someone coming along with him. He doesn't typically leave his warehouse unless he has to. He wanted me with him for every corporate gathering, every meeting. He wouldn't even go out to the store himself. I had to be very firm with him that I was not living in that warehouse with him back in Phoenix; that I go to my own home at night.

"Frankly, I was stunned to see him fly alone to meet me for lunch Friday. When you and I talked, I assumed it was you I was meeting. I would never have put that man on a plane by himself. It was risky," she said in an admonishing tone.

"I didn't know that," Amber said hollowly.

Mickey shook her head sadly. "Amber, I truly do care about Austin and I want to help him and your company to have a successful transition, but I don't plan to stay all that long. I have my own life back home, and I'm not ready to follow Austin all over the country for the rest of my life like his personal nurse. I'm sorry if he misled you, but having a baby with him, someone with his condition…this just seems like a very bad idea. You might end up with more than you bargained for." She stood up.

Amber was immediately on her feet as well. "What do you mean, 'someone with his condition'? Is he sick?" She followed Mickey as she hobbled on her immobilizer boot back toward the doorway of the bedroom.

"I'm sorry. This is really something that you should be discussing with Austin. If he hasn't brought it up, then I have no business talking to you about it." Mickey ushered Amber into the hallway and returned to stand behind the door, holding it like a barricade between them. "Maybe we can catch up with him later on today and you and Erich can talk to him about any health related concerns. I've said too much already. I'm sorry." She quickly shut the door, effectively ending the conversation. Amber stood, dumbfounded, in the hallway for a moment before turning and making her way back downstairs.

* * *

"Austin, if you wouldn't mind," a technician named Tom Paulson called out over the boisterous late strains of Bolero, "can we turn down the volume a bit?" He was looking up from rows of leafy green squash plants with elongated yellow blossoms bulging but not quite parted open. Of the entire team, it was currently his job to be lab assistant to the exceedingly strange Austin James. He would have given his left thumb to hand off the task to someone else. "Austin?" He turned around to find the lead research scientist some feet away from the edge of the squash project, his back turned toward it, apparently transfixed by the music. He was standing erect, eyes closed, his face turned upward toward the overhead speakers. Paulson watched him momentarily, and opened his mouth to make his suggestion once more, but changed his mind and returned to his notebook on his arm, cringing slightly. Six 'o'clock couldn't come fast enough.

The piece ended abruptly following the final blare of trumpets mingled with the firecracker bursts of snare drum, and Austin snapped out of his reverie, rejoining Paulson by the plants. He grinned. "It's a ride, isn't it?" he crowed. "No one can shut down Ravel! His favorite review of that work was the woman in attendance at its maiden performance who cried out, 'au fou'!" He ran his fingers delicately over one of the squash blossoms. "It means 'the madman'."

"Yes, I can see how that might move you," Paulson murmured, taking several steps closer to the far end of the last row of planters. He tried to settle back into his work, but it didn't last long.

"Paulson!"

"Yes, sir." The man glanced up again, his brow wrinkled in a way that made him look unduly worried.

Austin had moved across the aisle to a confocal laser microscope on which he had staged a series of slides and stood peering into the eyepiece. "Come take a look at this," he urged, motioning his colleague over without leaving the view. "See for yourself why you're putting up with the madman and his Bolero."

Hesitant, but interested, the man joined Austin at the microscope and leaned down for a look. After a moment, he pulled back again, raising an eyebrow. "I hate to ask…"

Austin took the notebook from his hand. "May I?" Upon getting a nod from Paulson, he flipped a page, motioned for the man's pencil and took that as well, and began to quickly write a series of marks on the page. It wasn't long before he had Paulson's solid attention.

"Is that what I'm looking at, Austin? Is that what you've done?" A slow smile spread over the man's ruddy face, and he rubbed his chin. He looked again into the microscope. "It's like you channeled in that thread of DNA in a funnel; it integrated perfectly. I've never seen anything like this before. That transition—it's beautiful!" He pulled back from the microscope and his smile broadened. "You're going to be Erich's best friend. I think you've done it!" He had no time to make any further move before the automatic exterior laboratory door slid open and Erich was there, hurrying inside. He stopped long enough to grab a lab coat off a hook near the doorway and don it before he hurried to the other two.

Austin gave him a curt nod. "Handy, as usual."

"I heard. May I see it?" He helped himself to a view through the microscope, followed by an intense perusal of the notebook. He set down the notebook and stared at Austin, frozen for a moment, before he clapped him companionably on the shoulder and exhaled. "I am so afraid of being wrong, but I think—I truly believe—we may be looking at the real deal," he breathed. "That's attached to the pollen we have ready to apply, right? That's what's going into the pollination tonight?"

Austin nodded, and the three men all shared an exuberant laugh.

Erich peered into the microscope once more. "You're sure the data matches the final slide, right? I can't be sure just at a glance, but if you're right about this—"

"I am. I'll bet my life on it."

Paulson and Erich exchanged looks, beaming at each other. "My friend," Erich said to Austin, "we're going to go share the good news with Dr. Krueger, and then I have some phone calls to make."

Leaving Paulson to finish up in the lab, Austin and Erich left the building and returned to the great house, proceeding directly to the designated conference room with its two-way mirror, and Erich had Dr. Krueger summoned to come join them.

"If this works like it looks like it will," Erich was saying in his low, steady voice, but with a tremor of excitement, "we can get the second batch of seed germinating as early as two more weeks. I'll get more planters ordered and prepped tomorrow. Austin, you've been a godsend. You're worth every penny."

"Do I hear a celebration brewing?" Dr. Krueger appeared in the doorway, his eyes shining with pleasure at the general mood of the room. "I do hope this is the case."

Erich rose and shook Dr. Krueger's hand. "If Austin's calculations prove true, we have nailed it! We should have giant, fully ripe squash in two more weeks. And then—"

"And then," said Dr. Krueger, seating himself at the table with Eric following suit, "we begin the part I have been most eagerly awaiting." He turned to Austin and studied him closely. "I see you brought your friend to us. She agrees to provide the services necessary to our work?"

Austin smiled warmly. "She is entirely ready to lend her services, absolutely," he replied. "Can't wait to get started." He fingered his lip for a moment and added, "Although, I may have a small concern with her."

Smiles dropped from the faces of his two companions. "What is your concern?" Dr. Krueger asked at once.

Austin shrugged. "I have no question of her willingness, but I fear she may have some difficulty maintaining her objectivity. She was very well qualified as a secretary while I was with Serendip, but now… I believe we may have a problem maintaining boundaries."

"Boundaries?" Eric echoed.

Austin turned to him. "Yes. I believe she is enamored with me; possessive, actually." He leaned back in his seat and turned his gaze to the ceiling. "Giving her this opportunity would be fitting in a way; it would give her a new direction in her life. She doesn't seem interested in dating other men. But I do have some concern she will take this to mean I want more of a personal relationship with her than what has been our history. She may seek some sort of permanence."

There was silence for a moment before Erich stammered a reply. "That is a possibility, yes. But I think if it's something that will truly be a hindrance for you, then we should give the surrogacy to Amber, as we had originally intended."

Before Austin was able to answer, another attendee to the impromptu meeting entered the room, slightly breathless and clearly troubled. "Dr. Krueger," exclaimed Amber Jezic, "Before we go forward with this, I think we need to have an urgent discussion. I have been given information, and I have reason to believe Austin James may not be mentally fit for this project."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Dead silence greeted Amber's announcement, at first. It was finally broken by a hearty, barking laugh from Dr. Krueger. All eyes turned to him, while he leaned on the table with one arm, his head supported in his hand, still laughing. He waved a hand at the room at large. "I'm sorry," he gasped, his laughter subsiding but the wide smile remaining in its wake. "Miss Jezic, your timing could not be better. You must have stood there just waiting for the most opportune moment for that statement." He turned to Austin, who sat attentive but unruffled beside him. "What do you think about this, Austin? It appears you are simultaneously our greatest asset and an enormous liability."

"Sounds like business as usual," Austin replied evenly.

From the other side of the table, Erich was glaring angrily at Amber. Whatever humor Dr. Krueger had found in the event was lost on him. "You must have something very solid you're basing this accusation on. Otherwise, I hope you are prepared to issue a formal statement to me and an apology to Mr. James."

"Oh, come now," Dr. Krueger said congenially to Erich, glancing warmly at Amber and nodding her to join them at the table. "I think we should hear out Miss Jezic. Please sit down and tell us your news. What information have you so recently acquired concerning the state of Austin's mental health that is so urgent?"

Amber pulled a chair out two seats from Dr. Krueger and gingerly sat down in it. She turned her dark eyes to Austin. "I've been talking to Austin's associate, Mickey Castle, and she has suggested that Austin has a definite psychiatric diagnosis." She paused to take in Austin's expression of surprise at the report. "She had utmost concern for maintaining confidentiality, and wouldn't tell me anything specific, but her exact words were to the effect, she doesn't feel Austin is psychologically qualified to father children."

Austin sputtered out an unguarded laugh at that before raising a finger to his lips and sobering.

He earned inquiring stares from both Dr. Kruger and Erich. He grinned at them, and then shook his head and clucked his tongue. "She must be more upset with me than I thought." He glanced up at Erich with a knowing look. "For leaving Serendip all at once like that and not telling her," he explained. "She was pretty angry about that." He raised an eyebrow at Amber. "Still is, apparently."

"She told me she has had to accompany you everywhere you go in her work for you at Serendip."

"She was my personal assistant. They generally do that, don't they?"

"She insinuated you shouldn't have been flying alone."

Austin sighed. "She knows I hate to fly." He looked at Erich. "I'm rather phobic. I confronted that irrational fear to extend a personal invitation to her to come here. I didn't know she'd use that as a means to discredit me to my new employers."

Dr. Krueger rubbed his forehead and looked up over the rim of his glasses at Amber. "Now we have a quandary. Who is playing who, and toward what end?" He nodded to himself. "I think we need to bring Miss Castle into our discussion to get a full picture of this situation."

"I left her up in her guest room. Do you want me to have her brought down?"

"Thank you, Miss Jezic," Dr. Krueger said. "Yes. We will wait."

Amber got up and departed the room. Immediately, Austin was on his feet and following her out the door.

"Wait, Austin! Where are you going?" Erich called after him.

Austin only paused a moment at the doorway, turning to look over his shoulder at the two men left behind. "If you will excuse me, as entertaining as this has been, I am not in the mood to deal with a confrontation with my former associate. You can find me back at the lab if you need me. I have work to do."

Dr. Krueger said nothing, but it was with an expression of curiosity that he watched Austin leave.

"Do you want him to go?" Erich asked the old professor in a low voice. "Shall we bring him back?"

"Let him go," Dr. Krueger answered. "If he's the same now as he was when I knew him, I can guess where he's gone. I'm more interested to find out about this secretary of his. Is she speaking truthfully, or is our Amber Jezic more resentful of being replaced than we might have thought?"

Minutes later, he got his wish.

Mickey entered the conference room accompanied by Amber. At once, Dr. Krueger stood and welcomed Austin's associate. He then proceeded to ask Amber to close the door behind her and join them at the table.

"Please come and sit," Dr. Krueger said to Mickey with a congenial smile, patting the table in front of the head seat, and placing himself beside it. The arrangement would position Mickey with Dr. Krueger on her right and Erich on her left. Amber, without making eye contact with anyone in the room, wordlessly went to the chair beside Erich and sat there. Mickey hobbled on her boot to her indicated position and sat down. Erich was leaning back in his seat, stationing himself as the detached observer, while Dr. Krueger leaned forward and took the position of directing the conversation.

"What happened to your foot?"

Mickey glanced downward and looked at Dr. Krueger again. "Just a dumb accident; I, um, caught it on a door."

"You should be more careful and watch where you step, so you don't get caught," he replied, studying her face intently. "Erich," he continued, without taking his eyes off of Mickey, "please pass us a copy of Austin's contract with us. I'd like to show something to our newest associate." He waited for Erich to spread open a black leather folder, exposing a short stack of papers within it. He set it down on the table and slid it across to him.

"Miss Castle," the older man said, arranging the open folder in front of her, "when Austin first indicated he wanted to select his own surrogate, I had doubts, but he was confident as well as insistent, and I bowed to his request. The fact that you have come all the way here from your home in Phoenix indicates to me there must have been some sort of verbal agreement about the nature of our little project here at the Thorne Foundation and your part in it. Is this true, or did Austin mislead you into coming here?"

Mickey swallowed. "I think he was as candid as he could be expected to be. He tried to explain it to me; it's my fault if I didn't believe him."

"You didn't believe this to be a surrogate project? You thought he was lying?"

"I thought he was just…talking. What I believed is that he needed help with something. He was adamant he needed help."

Dr. Krueger paused to inhale deeply. He sat, thinking, and then turned over the first several sheets of the contract until he reached one of the last pages, clearly signed by Austin and dated ten days earlier. "I want you to read the terms he signed, and please pay particular attention to the conditions for terminating this agreement, here on this page. I am showing you only the part pertaining to the surrogacy. The development of the mutated HB2 is another matter, and not your concern. Here, take your time, and tell me your thoughts."

Mickey felt a weight pressing on her chest as she slowly took up the page and began to read. It didn't take long to see that her fears were warranted. How Austin had agreed to such terms, signed for them, Mickey couldn't fathom. Maybe he truly had lost his mind. She looked up and felt slightly dizzy. "You can't do this to him," she exclaimed, nearly breathless. "This says you're sending him to the retraining center in Ukraine if he backs out. It says he owes you five years of service there."

Dr. Krueger shrugged. "Ukraine has an excellent program in our field. Many of our associates have spent time in this facility. Our last chief research scientist is there at present. Anyway, it was a nonissue to Austin, at the time. He was that confident he had your consent. Was he wrong?"

"No!" She looked up from the papers, her jaw set. "No, he wasn't wrong, but you are." Her eyes narrowed angrily. "His mistake was misleading you about his ability to give full consent. He was in no position to make decisions like that without an advocate."

"I suppose you're going to give me more of a song and dance about some psychosis he has? You are ignorant, then, that I have known Austin James since his youth. Unlike our rather impressionable Miss Jezic, I am very well aware of his quirks and foibles, Miss Castle. How long have you known him? A year? Two years? I believe I am more familiar with the young man, with his background, his mind, than you are. I am not so easily deceived." He smiled, but there was no warmth to it. "Just what kind of game did you come here to play?"

Mickey flipped over the pages and closed them within the leather folder holding them with a sharp snap. She shoved it away from her on the table. "You only think you know him, Doctor. He spent three months in a psych ward when he was eighteen, did you know that? He had his last hospitalization a year and a half ago, shortly before I started working for him. He is under a physician's care. Look!" She pulled her purse up from off the floor at her feet and dropped it on the table, then proceeded to open it and dig out three amber prescription bottles. She set them on the center of the table, one at a time, between Dr. Krueger and Erich Thorne. "He's schizophrenic," she burst out, trembling with fear or excitement, or maybe a little of both. "You didn't know that because it didn't appear until after you last saw him. He's spent the last sixteen years trying to live a semi-normal life. And he can do it, but not without a lot of help!"

While Erich reached forward and picked up the bottles, inspecting the labels, Dr. Krueger frowned and cocked his head at Mickey. "Why have I never heard any of this before today?"

Mickey pressed her hands together between her knees, trying to still the trembling. "The first time, it was his parents. They didn't want that breakdown to end up spoiling his future plans, so they kept it quiet, and got others who knew to help them with that. Later, it was Serendip. His first partner, Howard Millhouse, didn't want anything to threaten such a new company. Even his current doctor helps keep it secret. He partnered in his practice with a pathologist from the county medical examiner's office so Austin's prescriptions wouldn't be attached to his name."

Erich issued a low whistle. "These are potent, Doctor. Thorazine, haloperidol, lorazepam; they're all common medications for schizophrenia. The labels look genuine." He offered the bottles to Dr. Krueger, who accepted them, shook them once, and also looked intently at the labels.

"Explain why these are in your possession and not his."

"These are refills I brought back with me from home. One of my duties when I worked for him was keeping his prescriptions current and ensuring he took them. I suspected he hadn't kept up with them here, and I was right. He admitted to me Friday he ran out and stopped taking them several days earlier. Haven't you noticed more peculiar behavior, more grandiosity, less interest in self-care? He's not shaving regularly, not eating or sleeping. He was going to be in a catatonic state again before anyone knew to do anything." She looked at each of the three others in turn. "I don't think it will come to that. I got him started on them again as of yesterday morning. He might show some signs of…impairment—for a while—but that should level out in the next week or so."

Silence reigned for a protracted moment after that. Finally, Dr. Krueger turned to Erich and Amber. "Well," he sighed, "this is a bit of a disappointment."

Erich nodded. "But don't forget the HB2. That has been a success—provided he doesn't alter or destroy what he's already done. We are dealing with a psychosis." There was a question in his eyes when he looked at Dr. Krueger.

"The project has been closely monitored at every step. We are close enough to completion, I doubt that will be a concern. Just keep him closely watched. Still…" Dr. Krueger mused. He stared into space a while, before snapping back to attention and noticing Mickey again. "You see, Miss Castle, I have a particular concern which Erich doesn't share. I have amassed much wealth and influence both here and abroad, but I do have obligations to my backers. Some of them were depending on me to deliver not only the means, but also the genetic traits to bolster their cause. One without the other—that will be less valuable to them. They may not be understanding."

Mickey cleared her throat. Her mouth felt arid. "Does that mean you don't need Austin here anymore?"

"Oh no," Dr. Krueger smiled, "not at all. Austin has been instrumental in successfully purifying the HB2. I need him here long enough to ensure the HB2 produces the desired results. If for whatever reason this series is not successful, of course I will want him to repeat the trial after his condition stabilizes. For now, the next twenty-four hours will be especially vital. The pollination of the squash is an instrumental step in demonstrating the mutated HB2 is effective. Whatever Austin's condition, he has been successful in helping me with this portion of the project. I suppose I can't fault him for the other." He glanced down at his watch. "In the morning, when the offices are open, I will verify these medications and the history you've given me for their authenticity. You understand, I have no basis on which to rely on what you've told me. I'd like to say I trust Austin completely, but as you've shown me, there are things about him I no longer know. I would greatly appreciate if both of you remained here at Thorne Oaks until the HB2 portion of the project has been successfully concluded. We have sufficient amenities and staff to keep you comfortable during this time." With that, Dr. Krueger rose to his feet, handing the leather folder back to Erich. Erich and Amber also rose, and it appeared the meeting had adjourned.

"Doctor, wait," Mickey said suddenly, still in her seat. When he turned around again to look at her, she drew a breath and pressed on. "May I ask a favor of you, while we're here?"

"What is the favor?"

Mickey glanced at Erich and Amber, and turned back to Dr. Krueger. "He's afraid of the cameras," she said. No one said anything, so she continued. "The cameras in the laboratory," she clarified. "It's part of the reason he's not sleeping. He thinks there are cameras in the sensory deprivation tank too. He told me if he sleeps, the cameras will steal his thoughts and he'll lose his mind. Is it okay if I cover the cameras in the lab during the time he is willing to sleep? It would make things easier, just while his drug levels come up again."

Dr. Krueger nodded at Erich. Go and check with him. Let me know what you find out." He turned again to Mickey. "I will let Erich inform me of his recommendation. Monitoring of the laboratory is essential because of the highly sensitive work we are doing. I am not comfortable with the idea of losing visibility of this environment. I won't refuse your request outright, Miss Castle, but I will have to consider it very carefully. Erich will let you know what I decide." He opened the door and departed the room.

* * *

The sun was low when Mickey caught up with Austin again, finding him sitting cross-legged on the ground outside the laboratory with his back propped up against the wall, overlooking the laboratory parking lot situated behind the estate garages and next to the laboratory entrance. The area was well shaded and hidden from the main road by a border of dense shrubbery and tall trees. He glanced up at her approach, and the corners of his mouth turned up.

"How'd it go?"

Mickey dropped down beside him against the wall with her booted foot outstretched and released a deep, tremulous breath. "Terrifying," she admitted. "I think I'm still shaking." She held up her hands as evidence and smiled at him weakly. "They were really pushing the surrogacy thing until I convinced them you're schizophrenic. At least it looks like that's over. They're verifying your story in the morning, though. Are you sure everything's covered?"

He frowned and disregarded the question. "No one threatened you, did they?"

"No, not me," she said. "But Krueger made it clear he still wants you here for the HB2 and he has you on contract." She made a face, remembering the terms of that contract. "What are we going to do?"

Austin smiled grimly. "I'm going to give Krueger what he wants. The squash will be pollinated in the morning." He glanced sidelong at Mickey. "And after that, you're getting out of here." He looked straight ahead and didn't acknowledge Mickey's startled stare. "You bought me enough time to get done what I needed to. Now, tonight, we'll get the cameras covered so I can finish what I've started. It's over tomorrow."

"But what about you?" Mickey demanded. "You said I'm leaving tomorrow."

He nodded slowly. "That's the plan. I have a very important job for you to do. I'll get out when I can, but I need you to go first."

"Austin…"

He motioned her to stop talking as the lab door opened next to him. He looked up at Erich Thorne with narrowed eyes and no greeting.

"What are you doing out here, Austin?" Erich asked him in a guarded manner. "I've been looking for you all afternoon."

Mickey sighed, turned from Austin to look up at Erich, and answered for Austin when it became clear he was not going to speak for himself. "He says he was out at the beach. He's exhausted and he's scared. I'm trying to get him to go in and lie down." She returned her attention to Austin and patted his arm. "Please, can we go in now and get you some rest?"

In response, Austin bent his head toward Mickey, looking down at the ground, and muttered under his breath.

"What?" she asked, leaning in closer. She looked at Erich again. "I don't think he's slept except maybe an hour yesterday. I'm getting concerned." She leaned in toward Austin again and spoke to him encouragingly. "Maybe you could take one of your sleeping pills."

He suddenly sat straight upright, his back flat against the wall and a near-panicked look fixed on Erich. "No!"

Erich took a step backward. "Is he afraid of me?"

"I told you," Mickey said impatiently, "it's the cameras. It's getting worse the closer we are to sunset. I don't know how he'll be after dark. He won't go inside." She watched Erich turn around, a muttered curse under his breath as he opened the laboratory door again.

"Go ahead, cover them," he relented, standing in the doorway and holding the door open with his foot. "Just ring for me as soon as he wakes up in the morning; let me know how he's doing. There's a phone in the lab with my extension on it."

"What time is the pollination project due to start?"

"Never mind that right now," Erich said. He paused to glance down at Austin again, who was now bent over with his arms crossed over his chest and rocking slightly. "Will he be any better by morning?"

Mickey watched him rock and turned worried eyes to Erich. "I don't know, but it could be a whole lot different if he'd just settle down and sleep. I'll stay with him as long as I need to," she assured him. "If it goes well tonight, he could be much more himself by morning."

Erich left them alone, and after a ten-count, Mickey abruptly turned back to Austin. "I'm not leaving here without you," she hissed.

"We'll talk about it later," he murmured, still facing the ground, his hair hanging forward almost to his eyes. "Help me inside and let's get those cameras covered. I'm going to need to work fast."

They rose together as a unit from the ground and entered the laboratory, with Mickey guiding Austin with an arm around his back, speaking softly to him once they were inside.

"There we are. Come over this way with me. You wait here while I get the duct tape. Then you can point out all the cameras in here. I'll put tape over the lens, and when we've covered them all, you'll be safe to sleep." She turned back toward the front of the lab, looking left and right.

"Top drawer, far left," Austin murmured, tipping his head toward the closest aisle of cabinets.

Mickey darted off that way, opened the indicated drawer, and produced a new roll of silver duct tape.

"Don't leave me here alone."

She hurried back to his side and continued walking him to the back end of the lab. "I won't leave you," she promised him, giving him a sidelong, pointed glare. "I mean that, too."

"Not now!" he hissed under his breath.

They stopped by the tank just inside the doorway to Austin's apartment. Mickey flipped on the light switch inside and looked around.

"There!" Austin cried, pointing up and to his left. Mickey spun around to look and noted a gleaming black disk, like an oversized cornea, projecting from the top of the wall, up by the ceiling. It did have sort of a nefarious look to it when she thought of it that way. She tore off two pieces of silver duct tape, making an "x" shape with them. Then she pulled over a lab stool one-handed, and stepped up on it to reach the camera.

She repeated the activity twice more in the apartment, and then five more times in the laboratory. Afterward, she made a point of shining a flashlight into the sensory deprivation tank and checking for a hidden camera or listening device there, but none was found.

"Did I get them all?" she asked. She watched Austin slowly walk the perimeter of the room, his blue eyes sharply inspecting every part of the ceiling, the walls, down near the baseboards, and even the floor. He gestured for Mickey's benefit every listening device he found, which was transmitting all their conversation. He did end up finding one more lens, carefully installed within the center island of the lab above a chemical hood.

With that work complete, Austin returned to the tank. "You think I should go inside now?" he asked, a note of doubt in his voice.

"Please try, Austin," Mickey urged. "I'll watch here for you. You'll be safe." She observed him for a moment and added with a little doubt of her own, "You don't want help undressing or anything, do you?" That earned her a brief look of reproach, and no answer.

He opened the door and knelt before it. "I need music. Get the mike." She hurriedly picked it up off the top of the tank and handed it to him. "Play Brahms' Fourth Symphony, at 78 db." He clipped the microphone to his collar, stood up, and closed the tank door with a resounding bang.

A lush combination of stringed instruments filled the room from the overhead speakers and drowned out Mickey's quiet, "Good night, Austin," which she spoke to him as he stood in front of her. He smiled and darted back into the lab without a word.

His first action was to swipe the notebook off the counter where the confocal laser microscope was perched. He thumbed through it to a particular page, the one he had jotted on earlier that day and set the notebook back on the counter. Carefully, he ripped the page out of the book. Then, pinching the edge of the page between two fingers, he pulled up an empty metal trash can from the cabinet under the nearest sink, silently set it down, and produced a lighter from his pocket. He lit the edge of the page with a flourish, and delicately dropped it into the can. Then he looked up at Mickey with deep satisfaction in his smile. He went on to repeat the process with a number of pages from several different notebooks.

Next, he entered the section of the lab with the rows of leafy squash all growing under the pale pink glow of greenhouse lighting. He inspected them briefly, before heading off somewhere in relative shadow and soundlessly retrieving a rack of refrigerated test tubes, various bottles and flasks, and a syringe and needle.

Mickey watched him only a short time before she turned and went into his residential apartment, settling herself on a plush sofa while she waited. It was with a sense of déjà vu she was startled from a doze by a persistent tug on a lock of hair near her ear.

"It's past midnight," Austin whispered not far from her ear, from where he knelt beside her. "I'm going to sleep for real."

She sat upright and blinked in the dim light. A different classical music piece was playing at a much lower volume. She didn't recognize it. "What should I do?" she mouthed back.

He glanced over his shoulder toward his sensory deprivation tank, and then motioned for Mickey to follow him. They went to the tank and he carefully, silently opened the door wide. He again signaled for her to join him as he lowered himself to his hands and knees in front of the contraption. She looked at him askance, but quickly mirrored his movements.

"Take it." He had a single brown clasp envelope in his hand, bulging slightly with probably a dozen or so pages. He pressed it into her hands. "It goes in your purse."

"What is this?"

"Get down here like I am with your head in the tank. It'll block our voices from the bugs, so I can tell you." He rolled onto his back and scooted up to the tank until he was inside to his shoulders with his head on its padded surface. Mickey joined him, and they lay shoulder to shoulder in the dark, their bodies from mid-chest down protruding in a perpendicular direction from out of the tank.

Mickey stifled a laugh. "Austin, this is so weird."

"Shh. Listen, I copied and shrank down Sykes' entire record of HB2, both the original study that was shut down and the stuff he was doing last year, when Edgar Johnson pilfered it." He stopped to smile broadly, rolling onto his side to look at her. "Everything we need to prove he had Edgar killed is here, all of his notes, in his own handwriting. You're taking it to the FDA Office of Criminal Investigations. It may take them a while to sort it all out, but they'll be glad when they do."

"Where is it?" Mickey tilted her head toward him.

"The closest field office is in Milwaukee. That's about a two hour drive from here. Go to sleep for now. You can take it in the morning, after the big pollination event."

Mickey gave him a wry look. "How am I supposed to do that, Austin? Krueger isn't going to let me drive out of here. He told me neither one of us can leave until the HB2 proves successful."

Austin considered that with a sigh. "He told you that, huh? Looks like things are getting serious." He rolled onto his back again before continuing. "Answer a question," he whispered. "Steal or stowaway, which would you do first?"

"She frowned, her lips pressed together in distaste. "I don't like to steal," she complained.

"Then I'll send you on an errand to pick up my mail from the post office box I took out. When Krueger tells you no, he'll send someone else out on the errand for you. As soon as we know who he's sending, you'll get in their trunk."

"Excuse me?" She rolled over to face him directly.

"Their trunk," Austin repeated, turning his head her way and enunciating clearly in a harsh whisper. "Take along a pamphlet or a piece of heavy stock paper so you can hold the trunk closed without latching it all the way. I'm giving you my wallet so you can take a cab to Milwaukee."

Mickey stared at him in dismay.

He sighed and looked at her sidelong. "Would you rather steal? It'd be easier?"

"No."

"Then it's the only way, Mickey. Just get into the trunk, don't latch it tight, and wait until whoever it is gets to the post office. Then you climb out and get out of sight."

"How do you know whose car is whose?"

"Why do you think I was sitting there watching the parking lot all afternoon?" He rolled his eyes. "Go back to the couch now; get some sleep," he instructed firmly, carefully extracting himself from the tank. "We have a big day tomorrow."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Shortly after 5:00, Austin woke Mickey once more to call in a report to Erich. It took three rings before he answered, and his voice was gravelly enough to indicate she had awakened him earlier than he would have chosen.

"I'm just letting you know Austin is awake now," she said dutifully. "I've ordered some breakfast to be delivered here to his apartment. He's feeling better…right Austin?" She lifted her chin and spoke to Austin, who was seated up on the cushioned arm of the couch beside her, watching her intently. She turned back to the receiver and addressed Erich again. "He claims he doesn't remember a lot of yesterday, but he does remember the pollination is supposed to be happening today."

"Okay, good to know," Erich replied, sounding less than very pleased. "Are we okay to get the cameras back in service? Dr. Krueger wants them ASAP."

Mickey looked at Austin, mouthed "cameras?", and got a confirmatory nod. "Um, yes, I think he's okay with me getting them uncovered now. When do you plan to be down here?"

"Not until 9:00. Will that work for Austin?"

"Nine?" Mickey checked again with Austin, who nodded. "Yes, that should be fine."

"Then I'll see you about that time."

"Wait, Erich," Mickey said quickly. "Can I ask you for a couple of things?"

"What do you need?"

Mickey looked at Austin as she spoke. "Well, I want to give Austin his next dose of medications, but Dr. Krueger still has the bottles. Will you be able to bring them?"

"Absolutely. I'll bring them when I come."

"And Austin told me he's rented a post office box; he wants me to go and retrieve his mail."

There was a short pause. "I think it would be better to send somebody else for now. Austin is needed here this morning, and after yesterday, I think he'll do better if you stay nearby. If I send a member of our house staff, would that be acceptable to you?"

Austin held her eyes and smiled encouragingly. "You'll need the box key," Mickey said.

"I have a butler named Rittman coming in today. I'll have him come get it from you and pick up the mail."

"The butler, Rittman?"

"1986 LaBaron sedan, blue," Austin whispered.

"That's fine," Mickey confirmed. "When should I look for him?"

"I'll bring him along with me for the key when I come at nine."

The ordered food arrived shortly after Mickey had cleared away the tape from all of the cameras. In the meantime, Austin had settled himself back in the tank, and made a terrific show of being reluctant to come out of it again to eat.

"Come on, Austin," Mickey coaxed, "you shouldn't eat in your tank. Come out here and sit with me at the sidebar." She blew out an impatient breath. "Well, then I'm going to eat without you. I'm hungry."

From inside the tank, Austin called, "I'll eat outside!"

"Are the cameras still bothering you?" Mickey stood up and leaned down to the door to the tank. "We can take the food out back if you want to. You want to go for a walk and eat?"

The tank door flew open, and Mickey jumped back a step. "Yes," Austin answered firmly, climbing out and standing up. He picked up a sweet roll in one hand and a glass of juice in the other from the large silver tray of food. "Let's go."

Mickey started to pick up the tray to bring with them, but Austin stopped her with a tip of his chin. "Leave it," he instructed. "Take what you want and let's walk." From there, safely removed from any video or audio surveillance, he led the way toward the lakeshore path at the back of the grounds in the early morning dawn. A cool breeze was blowing in off the lake, and Mickey pulled her sweater a little tighter around herself as they left the confines of the patio and made their way at a more leisurely pace farther from the estate along the cobbled pathway.

The lake was so placid it lay like a sheet of blue-green glass, stretching clear and still to meet the fingers of bright yellow-pink sunrise spilling onto its surface over the horizon. The waters at the shore barely stirred. There, Austin stopped walking and just stood, and Mickey stopped and stood beside him.

His eyes were on the lake, but his mind was elsewhere. He stood quietly for some time before he finally began to speak. "Carl Sykes paid to have Edgar Johnson killed, so Sykes could profit off a discovery that was never his."

Mickey looked at him solemnly. "I know that."

"The papers I gave you prove that. Carl Sykes won't get away with murder anymore. That's what's important."

"Austin, I know how important this is to you, but I'm still not leaving you behind."

He glanced at her and his expression was focused and solemn. "Dr. Krueger and Erich know something is up. They're going to figure it out soon, and then they'll know I've crossed them. They don't have their seed anymore."

"You got the seed?" Mickey exclaimed, surprised. She brightened. "You mean, this is all over?"

Austin looked too grim to be triumphant. "I destroyed the seed," he amended. "The unused portion has been exposed to a chemical that alters its genetic composition. It's not the same seed anymore. The squash is going to be pollinated this morning with HB2 that has been altered to include a terminator sequence. Thanks to you, I was able to get it all done last night." He smiled tiredly at Mickey before taking note of her mystified expression and elaborating. "The squash seeds will be sterile; they won't grow a new generation. Krueger and Thorne will find out about that as soon as they go to plant the next series in two weeks—maybe sooner, if the fruit is visibly altered."

"So we can leave. We'll just slip away after the pollination today," Mickey said with restrained hope.

" _We_ can't," Austin countered, with an emphasis on 'we'. "I also deleted the genetic sequences from their records, both the written ones and the files on the computer, so they can never build this virus again. If we're lucky, they won't figure that out before lunch." He turned away from the lake to face her, his eyes bright and penetrating. "But the minute I disappear from here, it will be a full-out man hunt. I will be stopped. You know that, right?"

"Then why—"

"Because I have to stay here and make sure the pollination happens. Because by yourself, you have time to do what I can't. Without me, you're not a threat to them." He turned back to the lake and shook his head at it, a sour look on his face. "Dr. Krueger's plan was horrible, but Erich's plan may have been just as bad. Those two both have millions of dollars sunk into making this virus work. They have both made a lot of money on industries that benefit from genetic modification, and neither one's in traditional agriculture." He glanced at Mickey and looked away again. "And they have the resources and the motivation to eliminate whatever presents an obstacle to them. I just flushed a whole lot of their money and commitments down the drain. Somebody's going to pay."

Mickey's lips pursed angrily. She wanted to shake him, but she kept her hands firmly shoved into the pockets of her knit cardigan. "So you're saying you're on a suicide mission. 'Run for the hills, Mickey; save yourself'? Is that what you expect me to do for you?"

He tossed her an impatient look and turned from the lake, walking again up the path that wound back toward the house. Mickey followed, trudging beside him but looking down, her hands still balled in her pockets.

"I'd much rather live, believe it or not," he said philosophically. "I hope I do. But that's secondary. Only you have time to get away and deliver those records; if you can manage to get help while you're at it, that's bonus."

"So I go straight to the police."

Austin rolled his eyes, exasperated. "So they can take two weeks to figure out what crime is being committed? Get those papers to the people who at least recognize what they are, Mickey. This isn't for the local police department. This isn't home; they don't know me. They're not going to do anything on my say so."

Mickey stopped walking. "Austin, I can't!"

He walked one more step before turning to face her. When he did, he released a long breath and then leveled his most demanding stare and a pointed finger at her. "You want to help me, right?"

She nodded.

"Then _let go_." His stone-hard expression held for only a moment before it softened into something far less stern. "That's how you help me. You do what I need you to do; the bad guys lose. Isn't that how we work?" He waited for her to acknowledge that much was true. "It's going to be okay."

Neither one of them quite believed the last qualifier, but they turned back on the path together toward the estate without any further discussion. Not until just before they reached the patio did Austin get the notion that should this actually be his last conversation with Mickey, perhaps he'd rather not end it on false reassurances.

"Hey," he exclaimed as she carefully climbed the flagstone steps, leading with the foot without the boot and holding the rail. She stopped there and turned around, and the morning sun caught her ash blond hair, illuminating it in a halo of wind-stirred golden ringlets. He paused long enough to commit the image to memory, broken foot and all, and filed it in the same place as the one of her at the fountain back at Serendip, before things got so muddled. "You were brilliant," he said.

She didn't say anything, and her eyes grew glossy and threatened to overflow, but she smiled at him. She stood there, smiling, for just a moment, and then she turned again and quickly disappeared into the house without him.

* * *

"Miss Castle, I believe you have a post office box key to give to me."

The man stood about Mickey's height, was dressed in the usual black and white garb of an estate butler, and had accompanied Erich Thorne into the lab at the appointed time. Rittman. Mickey greeted him politely and produced the key.

"It's at the main post office downtown," she told him. "Do you think you'll go very soon?"

Rittman argued that to wait made better sense, because the Monday mail had likely not been sorted so early. He would depart after lunch, and catch up on other duties in the meantime. So Rittman returned to the main house, and very shortly in his wake came Dr. Krueger, accompanied by two men both dressed similarly, in button-down shirts and casual slacks, and each wearing a jacket. The duo had husky builds, and stayed close to Dr. Krueger's vicinity without actually interacting with him directly. They did not appear to be scientists.

Dr. Krueger was introducing them in general terms to both Austin and Erich. "These are two of my associates from my Switzerland office. I ask them to come when we are undertaking critical research developments. I'm sure you are aware of opposition some have to the nature of our research. My security team helps to keep outsiders away from projects, particularly in their most vulnerable phases."

He caught Mickey's eye, where she stood some feet away, positioned between the expanding group of participants in today's exercise and the entrance to the lab. "Miss Castle," he called. "I have what you asked for." He held up three plastic amber bottles above his head for her to see. She hurried to collect them from him.

"I'll give these to Austin right now," she said, and she began to seek him out, back toward his personal quarters.

"How is Austin faring this morning, Miss Castle?" the professor wanted to know. "Did you have a satisfactory night?"

"He was up for a good part of it," Mickey admitted. "But he seems rested now. I think he's improving." She saw him then, sitting at one end of the couch on which she had spent most of the night, visible but removed from the activity of the laboratory.

Dr. Krueger continued his conversation with Mickey. "I did have a chance to contact the physician on the labels this morning," he said, indicating with a hand the prescription bottles she was holding.

"Miles Smanovich," Mickey confirmed.

"Yes," Dr. Krueger smiled slightly. "And I spoke briefly to Graham McKinley as well. Interesting conversation with him, I must say."

"I'm sure," Mickey answered, distracted. The lab entrance opened again, and the usual morning duo of research technicians came in and quickly donned lab jackets from the hooks near the door. Mickey returned her eyes to Austin, and began to move toward him. "I'm going to go…" She motioned toward Austin. "His pills," she stammered, feeling suddenly tongue-tied.

"Of course," Dr. Krueger agreed. To Mickey's discomfiture, he remained close by her side, walking with her while she made her way to Austin. "Let's see him together."

When she reached him, she reminded him his pills were due, and he responded neutrally enough and paid no heed to Dr. Krueger. He didn't even look at Mickey, but stared somewhere in the direction of the lab, and not with any particular focus. She took the caps off each bottle and extracted the prescribed number of tablets from each, collecting them in one hand. Then she manually lifted his arm and turned his hand palm up. "Open your hand, Austin," she said, and he did. She flicked a glance at Dr. Krueger, who was observing the interaction with interest. Mickey deposited the pills into his hand. "Go ahead and take them now." Austin's gaze turned to his own hand, still suspended in midair, and he seemed to notice the pills for the first time. He put his palm to his mouth and dry swallowed the pills first. Mickey hurried into the bathroom of the suite and returned with a glass of water from there, which he accepted and drank from without direction.

Dr. Krueger smiled. "Very good, Miss Castle. You have completed your most important duty this morning." He placed a hand on Austin's shoulder. "Would you say he is improving or deteriorating? You say he has experienced catatonia with these episodes in the past. It appears he is moving that direction now."

Mickey looked over her shoulder into the laboratory. The noise level of the room was starting to rise as the technicians began to pull out notebooks and examine the progress of the rows of freshly opened blossoms on rows of leafy green acorn squash plants, and Dr. Krueger's associates were murmuring between themselves. Erich was issuing instructions and Amber stood present at his side. Mickey turned back to the old professor. "I think it's just the commotion," she told him. "He was better earlier, when it was quiet. He ate some." She blinked once and straightened. "I was up much of the night, though, watching him. Maybe this would be a good time for me to go back to the guest room and rest." She waited for any opposition from Dr. Krueger.

He smiled thinly. "Of course, Miss Castle. I'm sure you are quite exhausted. You will join us again for lunch in the main dining room?"

"Yes," she readily agreed, forcing a smile. "Thank you."

With a parting look at Austin, who still sat as he had since she had arrived, she turned and began to make her way hurriedly toward the lab entrance. Her uneasiness was rising exponentially, and she wanted only to get out of that place. She was standing at the door with her hands on the panic bar when she felt a grip close around her arm, holding her back from making her exit. She jumped.

"You are welcome to stay and observe the pollination, Mickey," said Erich Thorne, maintaining a firm grasp on her upper arm as he propelling her back into the room. "You weren't going to leave right before the big event, were you?"

Mickey smiled uncomfortably. "I wanted to go back to my room for a shower," she explained. "I haven't had the chance yet, with everything going on with Austin."

Erich nodded in understanding. "Certainly, you need that. Austin must have kept you up a good part of the night." He retained his grip on her arm as he turned and waved for Amber's attention. She had stepped away briefly to Dr. Krueger and now returned at Erich's summons. "Will you accompany Mickey upstairs to her room at the main house? She's spent so little time in it, I doubt whether she could easily find it again."

Amber nodded at Erich but addressed Mickey. "Dr. Krueger says for you to see Austin first; he's asking for you. And your purse," she said, holding up Mickey's brown leather bag. "You left it in his room."

Mickey felt her heartbeat pounding in her ears as she took her bag from Amber with a quiet word of thanks. Erich released her arm, and she slung her purse strap over her shoulder, clutching it tightly against her side, and quickly left him, returning to Austin. Dr. Krueger was no longer beside him, but he hadn't moved very far away either, not far enough to be comfortably out of earshot. She knelt down beside Austin, who was bent forward, hands in his hair, and looking at the floor.

"Austin?"

He was mumbling, so she leaned in closer to hear. His words were very soft, and very precise, spoken in quick bursts of three-word phrases with each exhalation. "Change of plans…Old green Chevy...Close to front...Keys in car."

She froze, taking a moment to comprehend what he was telling her. Turning her gaze up toward the lab again, she found Dr. Krueger and at least one of his associates eying them with interest. She almost missed Austin's final instruction.

"Get out _now_."

Mickey stood erect, considering all he had said, and looking around the lab for a way out. She found it in front of her, walking her way. She smiled and hurried to intercept Amber.

"Are you ready to go, or does Austin still need you here?"

Mickey leaned closer to the young woman to speak to her confidentially. "He really is getting better now," she said with as much confidence as she could pack into the words. "He's much more coherent. He wants to see you before the pollination." She shrugged at Amber's look of puzzlement. "I think he wants to apologize for putting you on the spot yesterday." Mickey turned to look at Austin, prompting Amber to do the same.

Austin's eyes were on them, and he locked them on Amber specifically and smiled faintly. She hesitated, but then excused herself from Mickey and approached him. Mickey watched long enough to see him invite Amber to sit on the couch. Then Mickey scanned the room again, finding Dr. Krueger and Erich had both resumed their preoccupation with the technicians up in the midst of the rows of squash. She circumnavigated the center of the lab until she reached the door, and with a last quick check that no eyes were on her, she ducked out into the bright sun of midmorning.

Outside, she walked partway down the center of the lot, scanning the area toward the garages, and her eyes settled on an olive green Impala with rust encrusted around the underside of its doors and creeping up its wheel wells. It was backed into its spot and close to the front of the estate, just as Austin had indicated. Then she picked up a handful of skirt and broke into a run towards it with an awkward gait that was part skip and part hobble. Her foot was aching something fierce, but she pushed through the pain and made it to the car. She pulled on the driver's side door and found it open, the keys in the ignition. Breathing heavily, she sent a brief prayer of thanks and a simultaneous plea for forgiveness skyward, and then she dropped into the driver's seat and started up the engine. It turned over with the loud rumble of a muffler that had developed at least as much rust as the doors of the vehicle. She threw it into gear and was very rapidly gone from the premises of Thorne Oaks. She could only hope she could send a lifeline back to Austin before it was too late.

* * *

For as much effort and anticipation that had gone into the planning of the pollination, the actual event had been anticlimactic. Erich checked under a microscope a sample of the mutated HB2 extracted from a test tube and mounted on a slide. Then Dr. Krueger also examined it, and offered Austin the opportunity as well. He had risen from the couch of his own volition and stood watching the proceedings from a short distance at the entrance of the lab from his apartment.

He accepted Dr. Krueger's offer with a nod and approached the microscope. He bent to examine the slide, and then stood and quietly asked Erich for an earlier one, labeled to indicate it was from a week ago. After he had inspected that one as well, he stood upright and turned to face the others in the room, crowding near.

"First," he began, "I want to thank Erich Thorne, Amber Jezic, and Dr. Emil Krueger for the opportunity to serve on this project. Second, I also want to thank them for their patience while I dealt with an unanticipated personal issue these last few days. I find the mutated HB2 exactly as I envisioned it. Unless anyone here can see a defect I haven't found, I am ready to call this project a success." He stepped back from the microscope and looked downward, rubbing his forehead, as a smattering of applause broke out around him.

From there, it was a lot of self-congratulations, followed by the uninteresting material act performed by the two technicians present. In all, it strongly reminded Austin of those tedious groundbreaking ceremonies that accompanied every new addition to Serendip over the years, full of pomp and void of consequence. Only Austin could appreciate the irony of the true consequence of this particular executive action, the systematic sterilization of the entire plot.

The event had concluded, and the participants had been dismissed to the main house in anticipation of a formal lunch in another hour, before the first whiff of trouble rose up. When most of the laboratory had cleared out, Dr. Krueger lingered behind, along with his two anonymous associates and Erich Thorne. Austin observed them, and stood facing them with the plot of squash plants behind him, his hands stuck in his pockets. He recognized the posturing; a subtle game of cat and mouse had commenced. Four to one odds were not promising. "More business to discuss?" he asked mildly.

Dr. Krueger approached him alone, smiling tightly and guiding him forward with a hand at his back. "Austin, I want to commend you on rising to the occasion today. You did worlds better than I was expecting, after last night. How do you feel?"

"Tired."

A general chuckle of appreciation passed between Dr. Krueger and Erich. Austin continued to walk with Dr. Krueger from the general laboratory toward an office generally reserved for Erich's use at the far end. Dr. Krueger produced a key and unlocked the room as they arrived. He opened the door, flipped on the light switch, and motioned Austin inside.

The room had a window facing the lab with a set of vertical blinds hanging from the inside. They had been drawn since Austin's arrival, and still were now. The office wasn't terribly small. It was large enough to comfortably fit a broad executive desk, a set of book shelves running floor to ceiling, a computer and printer, and four white cushioned reception chairs with gleaming chrome arms and legs.

After entering the room fully, Austin turned and then waited while Dr. Krueger stepped past him and went to the executive chair behind the desk, and Erich took one of the reception chairs. The other two simply stood with hands folded in front of them next to the door, like twin sentries. The makings of a trap were transparent.

"Sit down, Austin, please," Dr. Krueger said, smooth and congenial, while he seated himself at the desk. "Before we can consider lunch, I think we need to discuss the terms of our contract."

There was nothing to say to that, so Austin complied and sat in the chair beside Erich.

Dr. Krueger continued. "As much as I have appreciated working with you again—and you certainly have been instrumental to the development of the HB2 phase of our little project—there remains the other matter. Namely, you have been apparently forced to break contract with me over your obviously significant genetically linked disorder. That is a great tragedy to us all."

Austin raised his chin but said nothing.

"Your symptoms and your history are inarguably convincing; textbook accurate and well-substantiated by a variety of witnesses. I find nothing lacking in either. At the same time, if you'll forgive me, it seems all…exceedingly convenient." He merely smiled at Austin's raised eyebrows. "After all, though you are too polite to say so to my face, you clearly find my augmented intelligence breeding program abhorrent. I'm not blind. This schizophrenia certainly gives you an out."

Austin glanced sideways at Erich, who remained attentive but silent. "What has failed to convince you, Doctor? You did call my physician and verify my prescriptions. I don't know any doctor who will risk losing his license to distribute controlled medications by overnight express without a prescription."

"I did call," Dr. Krueger confirmed. "Oh, yes. But, you understand, we are both scientists. In the end, it is not hearsay that proves the hypothesis, but empirical evidence." With that, he produced the three prescription bottles which he had taken from where Mickey had left them in Austin's residential suite. He examined one of them, and then pressed and twisted the cap open. "Take this one, haloperidol," he mused. "In tablet form, the active ingredient is extracted from an alkaline solution of chloroform, giving it the characteristic bitter, medicinal taste." He tipped the bottle onto the desk and tapped out a few tablets. Then he produced from the drawer in front of him a set of vise-grip pliers. He delicately picked up a tablet and set it between the jaws of the pliers, and then squeezed until the pill was crushed. He tapped the dust onto the desk. Then, locking eyes with Austin, he licked his finger and pressed it to the powder, and proceeded to bring it to his mouth. "This is mildly sweet." His smile lacked any humor at all. "Glucose," he declared.

Beside Austin, Erich lurched back in his chair, causing the legs to issue a sharp squeal against the tile floor, his expression both shocked and disgusted. "Sugar pills!"

"Placebos," the doctor confirmed, "all of them." He cocked his head at Austin. "I am impressed, though. You went to substantial lengths to support your claim. I am very impressed." He took a tissue from the box on the desk and wiped the pill debris off of its surface, twisted the cap back on the bottle, and pushed the entire assortment off to the side. "Unfortunately, I have again established you have broken our contract. You have two choices to remedy this."

"Two?" Austin replied.

"You can spend time in the retraining center in Ukraine." He grimaced at that suggestion. "I don't recommend it. They are highly influenced by Soviet methods of compliance. It does get ugly."

"Or?" Austin prompted.

"We can fulfill the original terms of the contract, of course," Dr. Krueger said, brightening. "You complete the purification of the HB2 mutation and meld it with your DNA. All is forgiven."

Austin sighed at his former advisor and turned to Erich. "Unfortunately, gentlemen," he said, "your original terms are moot." Then he braced himself for the fallout of a great deal of disappointment.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Erich was the first to respond to Austin's declaration. "What are you talking about—moot?" He was abruptly on his feet, turning toward the lab. "The seed," he breathed. He turned back to Austin. "What have you done to the seed?"

Austin shrugged. "Not a thing. It's all still there—growing in the pots out in the lab or resting in that closet over there in the corner. Go ahead and check." He raised a hand to indicate the narrow utility closet behind Erich's desk, near the corner of the room.

Dr. Krueger turned to look over his shoulder at it. Erich's face reddened and he rushed over to it and shook the knob. "This closet is locked. How do you know what I keep in it?"

"You're right. How could I know? I must be making a wild guess." He looked away.

Erich fixed a hard look on him before turning and leaving the office for the laboratory with rapid strides. As soon as he left, Dr. Krueger turned a somber expression on Austin. "I always admired your gall, Austin, but I'm afraid you have made a very bad judgement call this time. Something may have to be done about this."

The four to one odds, the twin sentries, the blown cover, and the strategic trap within the confines of a locked room converged to make Austin's unhappy fate look immutable, in his own estimation. So he leaned back in his chair with his arms folded, locked eyes with his mentor turned nemesis, and waited for the cats to pounce.

Moments later, a terrific crash sounded from the lab. The two men at the door turned from their posts to assess the cause. The initial disruption was joined by further commotion, more crashes, the sounds of notebooks hitting the floor with force and intention and a string of strangled curses. Austin offered Dr. Krueger a wan smile.

And then Erich stormed back into the office, two notebooks gripped in one hand and his face contorted in rage. "What have you done with the data?!" he bellowed, his usual studied composure markedly absent as he threw down the notebooks onto the desk where Dr. Krueger still sat. "Where is it?!" There was a pitch to his voice that brought Austin scrambling to his feet, placing his chair between himself and a man who was rapidly unhinging and advancing on him, as he tried to maintain a safe distance.

It didn't work. Erich lunged past the chair, successfully catching hold of the yoke of one side of Austin's shirt and then took hold of the other, and grappled with him across the center of the office. The chair was caught up in the midst of the struggle when Erich muscled over it, tripped, and toppled it onto its side. Lurching forward and never losing his grip, Erich propelled Austin, stumbling several paces backward, in a clumsy dance that ended abruptly when the two fell back against the wall to the side of the desk. Austin took the brunt of the fall, his back slamming into the wall behind him while he simultaneously took the force of Erich's forward momentum in front.

The two associates of Dr. Krueger sprang into action, apparently at the professor's direction, and pulled Erich back before he could organize a second assault. "Sit down!" the older man exhorted in a voice that cracked like a whip. "Hube," he barked, conveying his will in a single gesture to one of the two who held Erich back. That man, even without assistance from his partner, easily steered Erich back to his reception chair and dropped him into it.

Austin straightened gingerly, catching his breath at a sharp hitch of tenderness from his ribs suggestive of some internal damage. He righted his chair on his own, casting a wary eye at his assailant before he slowly lowered himself back into his seat. He braced his arm carefully across the right side of his chest, relieving those ribs that were now sending shocks of pain up through his shoulder with every breath he drew. He inwardly collected himself and slowed his breathing, consciously calming his mind and detaching himself from the instincts of fear and dread that had taken a sharp upturn. Things were only going to get worse from here.

"Let's discuss this like rational people," Dr. Krueger said, shaking his head impatiently. Erich, tell us the problem you have found."

Not having entirely regained his composure, Erich launched a colorful stream of expletives as he recovered the two notebooks from the desk and handed them to Dr. Krueger. "He's removed all of the work accomplished from the last two weeks. And he's scrubbed the computer. It's all gone. Everything!" He bared his teeth at Austin. "Why would you do that? What more did you want from this organization, that you felt the need to destroy us?"

"Be calm, Erich," Dr. Krueger instructed mildly, pausing to rub his forehead. He turned an undaunted expression to Austin. "Nothing is lost. Our Mr. Austin James has eidetic memory. Every last formula and sequence is perfectly preserved in this wonderful mind before us. It will all be retrieved." He smiled wolfishly at Austin's defiant scowl. "Oh, I have no doubt you'll help us retrieve it all in due time, young man," the professor said in a tone filled with self-assurance. "Ukraine isn't out of the question."

"Is that a threat? I could learn the language, develop some code for them, make them grateful. Be like you." The derision in Austin's low voice was palpable.

"Hube," Dr. Krueger ordered, declining to react to his former student, but instead settling his gaze impassively on him. "I want you to find Miss Jezic and have her show you where Miss Castle is staying at the house. I believe it's time for Austin's associate to join us in our discussion." He peered down at the notebooks in front of him and flipped through them, while his trusted sentry immediately left the office to accomplish his task. Dr. Krueger paused in his reading and nodded slowly when he noted the absent pages. Then he looked back up. "Where did you put the originals, Austin?"

"It doesn't matter." Austin murmured, still focused on keeping his breathing shallow and his ribs supported. "You can't read them; they're chemically reconfigured by combustion."

"You burned them?!"

"Be still, Erich!" Dr. Krueger turned again to Austin. "You are making this unnecessarily difficult for both of us, you know. If you were hoping to break your contract this way, it was not smart of you. If it was just me you were dealing with, maybe this makes some modicum of sense. But you are threatening to upset some very unpleasant people with your obstinacy." Dr. Krueger sat more upright, taking into consideration all the information at his disposal. "However, perhaps this is just your way of expressing to me your disinterest in my program. So be it. Give Erich back the formulas, and I will forgive you the terms of our contract—for old times' sake."

"For old times' sake," Austin muttered, "you can call your goon off my secretary."

Dr. Krueger chuckled to himself. "Oh yes, I can imagine her welfare means something to you. Pleasant woman. She's loyal to a fault, you know. Really, Austin, I don't think you understand yet just how badly we all need that information you insist on hoarding. You can still agree to give it to me now, before Hube returns, and we can leave…your secretary…out of it. But I will use any means, Austin—even the undeserved Miss Castle, if it helps—to get that information. And I've spent years working around some terribly creative people."

"So you've mastered the art of torturing people to give you what you want. How scientific of you."

"Dr. Krueger, if you would allow me, I could—"

The professor shot a sharp look at Erich. "Wait," he commanded. "Wait until Hube returns. We're not ready to go to any extremes. Not yet." He heaved a sigh. "Although I suppose it wouldn't hurt to get set up while we wait. Let our colleague fully consider his alternatives." Erich needed no more prompting. He was out of his seat and back behind the desk, opening his closet and assembling items out of it.

Austin caught sight of a hypodermic needle and a series of glass vials among those items and he was gripped by a flash of horror that he was looking at meeting his demise as a human lab rat. Enduring this game with resignation may have been his intent, but now he was giving serious consideration to an improbable run for the door. In an instant, the decision was made. With only the element of surprise in his favor, he leapt to his feet and pushed past Dr. Krueger's remaining sentry, ignoring the breath-taking protest from his right ribcage and clearing the space of the lab as far as the outer door before it opened in front of him.

Hube stood there, surprised but quick to recover, and remarkably agile for a man of his formidable size. He caught up with him in two steps, hooking him with one bulky arm around the waist and spinning him back toward the door. His other arm joined the first to clamp around Austin's hips and tackle him to the ground with enough force to produce a sickening crack as the back of his head struck the corner of the door-jamb.

He must have blacked out. He was conscious of lying just where he had fallen, in a doorway, unsure of the passage of time and momentarily confused as to how he had wound up there. Any thoughts of escape were effectively shelved.

He was dazed enough to allow a couple of guys, presumably Dr. Krueger's two henchmen, to haul him to his feet and walk him, sagging between them, back to the office. Peripherally, he was aware of them talking. Mickey was missing; they couldn't find her. With inward satisfaction, Austin estimated she had been gone from the place maybe two hours by now. She must be close to Milwaukee at this point, and well out of their reach.

All at once, the supports on either side of him released their grip, and Austin crumpled down onto his chair with an involuntary cry of pain to accompany the jarring of his battered ribs. The endlessly useful roll of duct tape was produced, and wound several times around his wrists and the arms of the chair, followed by his ankles and the front legs of the chair, ensuring he wouldn't leave that seat again soon. The stars were slowly clearing from his vision, and aside from the throbbing of his head posterior to his left ear, he felt substantially more alert. He doubted whether that could be of any benefit to him anymore. His time was running short.

Erich stood before him now with his hypodermic needle, priming it in the standard upright fashion, expelling the air bubbles—good technique. Austin bucked hard in his seat in an effort to upset the chair. Being restrained was no reason to make it easy for them. His effort only tipped the chair back, and it was readily righted by one of Dr. Krueger's henchmen.

Dr. Krueger was speaking again, closer now, perched against the back edge of the desk and hovering above Austin. "It was never my intention to cause harm to you, Austin," he said with a note of regret. "We have our differences, but I don't want you destroyed. I hope we can talk later, and reach a better understanding." He reached forward and firmly lifted Austin's chin to reestablish eye contact between them. "I have decided it will be best if I bring you with me to my own estate. I was going to return tomorrow, but under the circumstances, today will be better. For now, I hope you will hold still for Erich. A little of this will keep you comfortable for a long flight. A little too much will make you forget to breathe." He released Austin's chin and stepped to the side.

Then hands were holding him down, holding down his arm, yanking up his sleeve, and Erich was twisting a length of latex tourniquet around his upper arm. The laboratory door unexpectedly burst open, and the quick tapping of a single set of running footsteps approached, temporarily freezing the chaotic configuration of bodies. Austin was having increased difficulty holding on to a sequential train of thought—a consequence of a likely concussion—making the conversation around him hard to follow, but he comprehended that it was Amber who was now standing in the office doorway. She had appeared agitated when she arrived, but was momentarily distracted from her prior concern by the sight that met her. Her lips moved without forming words and her dismay visibly increased before she was finally able to deliver her intended message.

"Police!" she exclaimed, breathless and trembling. "It's some kind of raid!"

One of Dr. Krueger's men was already running to the nearest front-facing window, splaying the blinds and peering out. "DEA agents!" he cried. "How'd they get a warrant?"

Austin was just thinking to himself that there must be a mistake; Mickey was supposed to report to the Food and Drug Administration, not the Drug Enforcement Agency. That thought was suspended by a sharp jab in his arm, followed closely by a rush of tornadic wind in his head, his heart pounding with such force it strained to leap out of his chest and burst apart, and then his head seemed to explode in a rush of color, light, and howling wind. All his conscious thoughts were sucked up into a vortex of dark matter, too powerful to resist. He stopped trying and let it consume him in an undertow of perfect peace.

* * *

Never before had Mickey seen such a collection of emergency vehicles jammed into one space, not outside of television. She sat in the back of one of the vehicles, a late arriving sheriff's police car that couldn't even get close enough to make it all the way past the tall iron gates of Thorne Oaks, let alone pull up the drive and into the lot behind the garages. That she was in any one of the vehicles involved was a true act of mercy by one of the initial officers to whom she had spoken. She had claimed a need to go back for property—namely, Austin's car—but the cop had understood without saying so that there were other concerns.

Her driver and his partner exited their car and advanced to the scene on foot, advising her to stay out of the way, and so Mickey got out and trailed some distance behind them, standing tall and trying to look as though she belonged there. She had to step over to the edge of the drive to allow a few exiting DEA vehicles to pass. These were followed by one ambulance, lights and sirens activated as the rig reached the road and turned onto it.

Her eyes followed that vehicle until it disappeared from view, and fear crept in atop the middle-grade anxiety already present. But the ambulance was gone and she still needed Austin's keys if she wanted to drive herself anywhere. She pressed forward, rounding the edge of the garage, and found a vast multitude of vehicles still remained in the lot itself—DEA, sheriff's police, FBI, and even one from the criminal investigations unit of the FDA. The lot was a sea of strobing red and blue lights, and various officers and agents going about the business of securing what must be called a crime scene. She bent her head and pushed through the ruckus, heading toward the laboratory, until she overheard a familiar voice coming from off to the side, where a knot of officers gathered at the side of the building around one familiar witness.

Amber Jezic stood in the midst of them, giving her report to the agents, one of whom was rapidly writing her statement in a notebook. Her voice was running at a higher pitch, and she was wringing her hands and occasionally dabbing at her eyes with one hand. Her carefully cultivated, polished self-assurance was nowhere to be seen, making her youthfulness so much more apparent. From where Mickey stood, she could hear only snatches of a troubling report. "…never thought he could do something like that…just slammed the whole thing…slumped over…not breathing…nothing I could do…"

It had taken everything Mickey had in her to allow Austin to have his own way, knowing full well that this severance might be permanent. She had done everything in her power to bring him the help he needed in the time he had left, to be bold enough and desperate enough to save him, as he had once saved her. There was nothing more she could have done. In the end, she hadn't even done it his way.

After she had fled from the estate, she hadn't really known which way to go. Austin had directed her to the criminal investigations unit of the FDA, located in Milwaukee, but aside from being somewhere to the north, Mickey hadn't a clue how to get there. And once there, she wouldn't have had any idea where to find the office. The usual solution would involve a telephone, maps, and patience. She had none of these.

She made an honest effort, at first, and turned onto the first major road she found that went north, and then she saw something that seemed intended to redirect her path. It was the headquarters of the sheriff's police. Her decision was made almost without a conscious thought. She pulled into the lot and ran into the building.

The panel of officers at the desk had raised their eyes at her with some curiosity when she first burst through the door, which grew into heightened alertness as she stated her cause.

"My name is Michelle Castle. I just escaped from an estate down the road in a car I stole and my boss is being held against his will by people who want to force him to help them manufacture illegal drugs! I have proof." She pulled the envelope from her purse and set it on the counter.

From there, she had earned an escort to a small conference room back in the interior of the building, where she was left for what felt like hours, miserable with the fear of being too late to help while a detective confirmed the car she had been driving was not hers, that it did belong to an employee of the Thorne Oaks Estate, that a man named Austin James had indeed recently begun employment under Erich Thorne and the Thorne Foundation, and that the pages she had produced contained some sort of scientific blueprints that very well could be drugs.

Events took a more favorable turn when the detective learned that Erich Thorne was already a person of interest with the Drug Enforcement Agency, suspected of illegal narcotics manufacture and trafficking, but with not enough probable cause to secure a warrant. A short time later, Mickey's statement had provided enough impetus to get the coveted warrant, and then help was on the scene, swift and thorough. But the question remained, was it sufficient to save the life of the most brilliant man on Earth?

Mickey pushed her way closer to the laboratory entrance, but she hadn't even reached it before she was stopped by law enforcement officers, people with protocols and agendas, who didn't care about her need for a set of keys to a battered station wagon she couldn't have extricated from the congestion in the lot anyway.

She turned away from the lab and limped back out toward the circular drive, her injured foot now throbbing from the abuse she'd given it. She felt lost and hurt and suddenly very alone. And then a voice called from behind her.

"Miss Castle? Is that you?"

She spun around and saw a man no taller than her dressed in the standard black and white of an estate butler. "Mr. Rittman."

He looked shaken and out of sorts, but also concerned with her well-being. "The police are finished with me," he said, glancing behind him nervously at the great house, "so they have asked me to vacate the premises for the remainder of the day. I have this." He fished out of his vest pocket a post office box key. "I'm sorry circumstances prevented me from visiting the post office for you."

Mickey stared at it for a moment before she accepted it out of his hand. She fingered it and put it in a pocket of her sweater. "I don't know where he is," she said in a small voice. "A hospital, I think. I don't have the keys to the car we came in."

Mr. Rittman nodded shortly. "I can't say for sure, Miss Castle, but given where we are, I believe I know which hospital is likely. Since I am leaving now anyway, may I offer you a ride? I moved my car here to the front of the building." He pointed to a 1986 blue Chrysler LaBaron.

She made a sound that was part laugh and part sob, and then sniffled. "Yes, thank you," she said with a smile.

* * *

After an initial flurry of near constant medical interventions—blood pressures, blood draws, diagnostic scans, aggravating and repetitive questions tending toward whether he knew who and where he was—Austin was eventually parked in an examination room lying flat on a gurney with the curtain drawn and the lights kindly turned down for his benefit. There, he was left alone, more or less, to await an eventual room assignment on the ortho/neuro unit upstairs, an optimistic statement of his prognosis as far as he could tell. No one leaves you alone in the hospital when you're dying. He sported an IV line in the crook of one arm and a length of gauze wrapped around his head, and he ached everywhere. But no pain was more vexing than the constant pounding that emanated from the back of his head. His stomach threatened to heave at any significant change in position, courtesy of the diagnosed concussion, and he was absolutely spent.

That he was still alive to complain about it was an improbability he couldn't begin to explain.

He lay still with his eyes closed, distantly aware of the sounds of emergency room activity outside the curtain and drifting in and out of sleep until he finally heard Mickey enter. He knew it was her. The curtain was tentatively parted with a soft squeak on its guide rail, not thrown open in the manner of people who made their careers working in emergency rooms. She approached, stepping quietly, and stopping to drag over a plastic reception chair to the head of the gurney and lowering herself into it. Her purse was dropped at her feet with a soft thump. Then silence. He could almost feel the weight of her plaintive gaze on him.

"Stop fretting; I'm going to make it," he said, smiling to himself at the sound of the startled twitch from next to him. He opened his eyes, cringing a little against lighting that was low but still seemed intolerably bright.

She wasn't amused. "They said you weren't breathing when they got there. You almost died."

"What did Erich give me? Did you find out?"

"Heroin," she said with a shudder. "High grade heroin. I guess that was Erich's industry. He's been arrested on drug charges and attempted murder." She shook her head. "They wanted to kill you."

Austin thought about that; something was off. "I remember…" he began. Everything after the botched escape that resulted in the concussion was difficult to recall. He took a moment to conjure it back up. "No. Erich wanted me dead, that I know. But not Dr. Krueger."

She stared at him, doubtful.

"He was going to take me with him, to wherever it is he lives and does his business. He wanted me put under for a flight, hence the powerful narcotic, but he didn't want me dead."

Mickey swallowed hard. "That might have been worse."

He raised an eyebrow, but didn't contradict her impression. "I want to know how you got the police to come, the DEA."

"I told them you were out there manufacturing illegal drugs." She smiled at the visible dismay on his face. "It's like you said, it would take too long to explain what was really going on, so I gave them something they would know. I think it helped that I was in a stolen car."

"You didn't do what I told you to."

Her lips twisted in a wry look. "I know. And you're welcome." She watched him and waited until the corners of his mouth turned up in a begrudging smile. "So it looks like you're here for observation tonight." She stretched out her arms and legs and shifted in her chair. "What do we do next, after you get discharged?"

"We go broke together; that was the deal."

Mickey pursed her lips. "Speak for yourself. I'm not broke yet. I still have another severance check coming in from Serendip." They shared a smile over that. Then she studied him with a curious look. "If we get to Phoenix and it turns out Graham missed you and wishes you'd come back to Serendip, do you think you would ever go back?"

He didn't immediately answer, which surprised her. She mostly expected him to deny it at once. He considered the question a while, and then he closed his eyes, making her wonder whether he hadn't just drifted off to sleep. But he finally spoke, softly, with his eyes still closed. "I don't know, Mickey. Would you?"

It was a question harder to answer than she would have thought. Part of her wanted nothing more than to go back to what had been, alternately carrying out Austin's corporate obligations at Serendip and spending time with him at the warehouse, following his own purposes. But another part was looking at what had recently come to pass: Austin fighting so hard counter to the objectives of his own administration that he had submitted to selling himself out, degrading his reputation, being beaten and drugged and left for dead rather than fail to do everything in his power to right a wrong. Serendip treated its founder as a liability; an obstacle to endure, when in fact, Serendip was as much a liability and an obstacle to Austin. Going back might be convenient for Mickey, but history suggested it would by no means be in Austin's best interests.

When her answer wasn't forthcoming, Austin's blue eyes snapped open and he smiled up at her, seeming to already know what she was thinking. "Don't answer that. Maybe when I get my brain unscrambled I can come up with something both of us can live with. Let me think about it." His eyes drifted closed again and the question was left unanswered, open and subject to further discussion.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

It was a short time after the supper tray had been collected—an assortment of broth, green gelatin, and juice that went untouched except for the cranberry juice Mickey ended up drinking—when a visitor arrived at the room, an agent of the DEA. Austin vaguely recalled having provided him an initial police report while lying on the floor of the office of doom at the Thorne Oaks laboratory during that brief interval of time between the reversal of his overdose and his transfer to the ambulance. It hadn't been a very detailed report at that time, more along the lines of, "Who did this to you and how many helped with that effort, so we can tally up our arrests."

The law enforcement officer, a balding, heavy-set man of about forty with a solid build that bespoke former athlete, identified himself as Agent Huntley, and returned seeking clarification of certain details that were causing some confusion in the investigation. "Can you still say with certainty the man who injected you was Erich Thorne?"

"Yes, definitely."

"And you identified three other male individuals who were involved in the unlawful restraint, most notably, a man calling himself Dr. Emil Krueger?"

"He isn't still calling himself that?"

The agent scratched his temple with the end of his pen. "No second man fitting your description was found at the scene, and we found no one to corroborate his identity with you."

Mickey's eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. "You mean, he escaped?" She shot a look at Austin, who remained silent and unreadable at the news.

The agent cocked his head at Austin. "I did do a background check on him, his name and his description as you provided it, but what I'm finding suggests you must have been mistaken. The Dr. Emil Krueger you were talking about has been dead since 1973."

"He's alive. That death was faked."

Agent Huntley dropped his eyes, studying his notebook. "Look," he said in a conceding tone, "you just had a near-death experience. Strange things happen. If he was someone you knew, someone significant, maybe—"

"I've been working with the man for the past two weeks. I didn't just dream him up this morning. So you're saying he was gone. You never found him."

The agent closed the notebook and looked up with a frown. "I'm calling him a John Doe at this point. Maybe he is the presumed-dead Dr. Emil Krueger, but that man has had no record of activity in the past sixteen years, no financial transactions, taxes filed, employment records, travel visas; nothing. There aren't any prints on record; there isn't even a body to exhume. We have no way of tracking him."

"Wait," Mickey exclaimed. "What about Erich, or Amber Jezic? They were working with him all along; they'll know."

"Miss Jezic has been fully cooperating with our investigation into Erich Thorne and his Thorne Foundation, since she's agreed to turn state's evidence in exchange for no jail time. But like you, Mr. James, she has only a description of a man she knew to be financing Erich Thorne. She wouldn't even swear to the name—she claimed it was understood by everyone working with him that he was using an alias, including the two domestics who were also involved in your aggravated battery and unlawful restraint."

"Domestics?" Mickey mouthed to Austin as they exchanged surprised looks.

"Whatever contracts or records of his involvement with the Thorne Foundation might have existed, they have since vanished from the estate, along with the man…whoever he is."

"And Erich?" Austin prompted.

"Lawyered up," finished the agent. "He won't speak to us at all."

After Huntley had left them, Mickey turned worried eyes to Austin. "He's still out there somewhere," she lamented, crossing her arms and wrapping them around her. Suddenly, she felt cold.

Austin reclined the head of his bed most of the way and closed his eyes. "It would appear so."

"What if he comes after you, Austin? You said he was going to take you with him. What if he comes back—"

"Hypotheticals," Austin murmured, his eyes still closed. "He's gone for now, maybe forever. I'm not going to lose sleep over it." He said nothing more, and minutes passed with only the soft ticking of the wall clock and the muted voices from a neighboring room's television to be heard. Then Austin's eyes opened and he glared at Mickey. "I can hear you fretting, and it's making my head hurt worse." He elevated the head of the bed again, eying her critically while she slowly unwound her arms and settled back in the bedside recliner, making something of an effort to release the rigidity in her posture. Then he nodded his approval. "Look at it this way:" he added with a spark of animation that briefly drove out his fatigue, "For years, I've been accused of living like a comic book superhero; now I'm closer than ever to actually being one. I've got my superpower—rare intelligence; I can get another warehouse to live in and keep up the mysterious recluse image, and now I even have my own evil nemesis." He reclined back down again, turning a contented expression to the ceiling. "You can be my Lois Lane."

The tension was broken as Mickey burst out laughing. "Your Lois Lane! You don't think you need a secretary; why would you want a Lois Lane?"

He smiled and closed his eyes again. "Every superhero needs a Lois Lane. Think about it."

* * *

 _Two weeks later…_

The heat was oppressive under a brilliant sun when Mickey opened her car door after pulling into the warehouse lot. Aside from the unpleasantness of the first true hot spell of the season, getting out of the car wasn't too difficult since she was leading with her left foot. Leaning back in and pulling out the crutches, and then managing the rhythm of walking with them while balancing her purse on one shoulder was the harder part.

She had caught a little hell from the orthopedist when he saw her for an evaluation of increased pain in her foot upon her return from Chicago. Apparently, she was suffering from an overuse injury to the already fractured bone, and so she was ordered on strict non-weight-bearing status until her six-week follow up appointment, which put her on crutches for another two weeks from now.

She got to the door, punched in the new door code, and gladly pushed on into the cool darkness of Austin's workshop. She was greeted by the familiar beeps, chirps, and gurgles of his works in progress—how many works in progress had he initiated just in the last ten days? The sound system was quiet, indicating Austin was likely taking a nap, so she shuffled over to the tank first and gave it a couple of good raps with the end of a crutch. "Don't make me play Reveille," she teased.

"What are you doing?"

She jumped and looked over her shoulder, surprised to find him actually up and sitting before his computer, back behind the living room area of the warehouse floor. "You don't have your music on; I assumed you were sleeping."

He smiled charmingly, reclining back in his swivel chair. His hair was toppling over his forehead in that careless way he wore it, and coupled with the smile, it gave him the appearance of a mischievous kid. "You assumed wrong."

She laughed. "What are you doing over there?" She rearranged the crutches and shuffled back over to where he was working, dropping her purse on the couch on the way. She parked her hip over the edge of the desk when she reached him, and carefully balanced her crutches next to her.

"I'm setting up another meeting with Graham tomorrow," he told her, looking up from his screen with a deeply satisfied expression. "I'm going to present a business proposal to him and see if he's interested in interfacing with my new company." He nodded toward the monitor.

Mickey read the heading at the top of the screen out loud. "Austin James, Science Consultant, Incorporated." She frowned at him. "You're incorporating yourself?"

He was looking at his screen again, and his fingers were nimbly tapping at the keyboard, bringing up additional spreadsheets. "I have it all worked out. From now on, I'm a consulting firm. I choose my own contracts and structure my own time. I'm giving Graham first pick, since he backed up my schizophrenic history for me—"

"And let you lease out your warehouse again," Mickey added. "Maybe you'll get along with him better as his tenant than as his business partner."

"I'll give him a six month contract, and leave it open for renewal or dismissal, depending on each of our needs and preferences. But it shouldn't affect the warehouse lease in the slightest since that's a different agreement."

"Where's your secretary in all this?" Mickey asked, studying the screen and trying to decipher Austin's markings. He was a big fan of symbols over longhand script. She dropped her hand on the mouse, moving the cursor and going back to a previous screen.

He reclaimed the mouse with an impatient nudge and returned to the last screen. "I don't need a secretary."

Mickey turned a withering glare on him. "We're not going to go through this again, are we?"

He blinked and peered up at her, trying to look blasé but ruining the effect with a sly smile he couldn't quite keep hidden. "You're not my secretary anymore," he insisted. He gestured toward the next screen he had pulled up. "I'm giving you another job. See?"

She squinted, bent over to read his outline, and sat upright again with a doubtful frown. "You're making me your chief financial officer and treasurer?"

"Sure. You've earned it. You and I will be both the board and the shareholders. I'll be chief executive and you can handle finances and minutes."

"Austin, I don't have training for something like that."

"You don't have to have training. You already know how to keep a budget, don't you?"

Mickey rubbed her chin. "For an individual, yes. But I don't know about a corporation. There are a lot of tax laws and regulations. Most people who do this have a master's degree in business administration. That's a far cry from what I know."

"You said you wanted to go back to school. So I budget for a professional development incentive. We'll put it right here." He paused to bring up one of his spreadsheets and key in some data and several lines of script. "There. You'll get tuition paid for all the classes you pass."

"You just wrote that I'm committing to working for Austin James, S.C.I. in proportion to the amount of time it takes me to finish my degree."

Austin shrugged. "That seems fair, in exchange for the tuition."

"It might take me five years to get my MBA, you know," Mickey exclaimed with a laugh. "Do you expect me to commit to working with you for the next ten years?" She cocked her head at him.

He gave her a hard stare for a moment, before turning back to his monitor and closing out his open tabs. Then he swiveled back around to face her and stood up. "Yes," he said, piercing her with his sharpest look, "that's my offer. Take it or leave it."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "I'm going to take it, and I'm going to make you put it in writing."

The sharp look brightened and was joined by a broad smile. "Agreed. Type it up and give it to me to sign. Tomorrow, come in early and we'll meet with Graham and nail down our first contract." He then darted off in the direction of his laboratory.

"Tomorrow!" Mickey cried helplessly after him, not even trying to keep up on crutches. "But you don't want to schedule a meeting where you'll go signing contracts until you have a lawyer who specializes in corporate law." She scowled. "You know, so you don't commit yourself to five years in some Ukrainian slave labor camp and other dumb terms like that."

"That's a job for my chief financial officer," he called back, out of sight somewhere in the bowels of the warehouse. "Better find a good lawyer for us today, right after you type up our agreement." Before Mickey could reply, she heard him speaking into his mike. "Beethoven; Eighth Symphony!"

* * *

Following a fair amount of coaxing and only one mild threat, Mickey convinced Austin to postpone the meeting with Graham until the following Monday, after reminding him that mere mortals needed time to construct contracts and evaluate them. The meeting did occur, and the attendees all left the table satisfied that a mutually beneficial agreement had been reached.

It had begun with an odd hiccup. After Graham had led them into his office and the five of them, including a corporate lawyer for each side, had been comfortably seated, Austin opened the conversation, getting straight to the point.

"Since coming back from Chicago, I've made a decision about the direction I'd like to take moving forward, and I thought you, Graham, and Serendip ought to be the first to know about it."

"You're getting married?"

Mickey coughed.

Austin just looked confused. "No," he corrected, with a scowl that indicated he didn't appreciate the non sequitur right at the start of his spiel. "I'm starting a consulting firm with my new business partner." He gave a nod to Mickey, who had finished coughing and smiled sheepishly behind the water glass she had lifted to her mouth.

Graham had raised an eyebrow at her, but nothing more was said, and the remainder of the meeting went smoothly. In the end, it was agreed that Austin would retain the right to accept or decline projects at will, while Serendip would retain the right to claim Austin as its founder, past president, and current affiliate.

The meeting adjourned, and Graham led them on a short walk to the original office of the president, converted due to disuse into the Lexington Conference Room four years ago. He was eager to unveil a new development in that space.

"I said to the board, he might love it or he might hate it, but all of us agreed it was the most fitting acknowledgement we could give you. Don't forget to read the inscription." Graham was beaming as he gestured toward the doorway. The backlit transparent plaque affixed outside the door proclaimed it the Austin James Conference Room. Above the plaque hung a large onyx plate imbedded with a bronze image bearing Austin's likeness. He was gazing out over the surrounding atrium, critical and aloof. The script under the image was a direct quote, likely heard by his colleagues many times in various forms since Serendip's inception six years ago: "You handle the administration; I've got work to do."

Mickey was instantly delighted, although she tempered that until she checked Austin's reaction. He stood, arms folded, almost mirroring the expression on the bronze image. But the corners of his mouth were turned up in clear approval. He stared a moment longer, and then turned back to Graham, Mickey, and the lawyers.

He cleared his throat. "I don't hate it," he confessed. That was the entirety of his acceptance speech.

The small group parted after that, and Austin and Mickey left the building at an atypical leisurely stroll, although on Austin's part it was under duress. Mickey had to remind him to slow down when he stepped off the elevator and set off at his usual brisk clip.

"Hey, wait for me!" she called after him.

He turned and stopped, and gave her a wry look. "Three cracked ribs and a concussion, and I still have to slow down for you?"

She caught up and kept her shuffling gait going right past him. "Don't make me use these crutches in a way Dr. Meade never intended."

He grinned and followed along behind her. "We may need to talk about some anger management. As I recall, that's how you broke your foot to begin with."

"You were easier when your head still hurt," she grumbled. They reached the reflection pool with its arcing fountains and Mickey paused to watch them.

Austin observed her for a moment. "Thinking of dinner?"

She turned and smiled. "I don't have any preference tonight. Do you?"

His mind had already moved on to something else. "If there was a compressed fish food coin dispenser here, where you could insert your penny for a food coin and toss that instead, then we wouldn't have to worry about all the corrosion from the coins in the fountain, and we could introduce koi fish."

Mickey wrinkled her nose. "That's not the same." She started hobbling again toward the parking lot. "You can't make a wish on compressed fish food."

Austin strolled along beside her. "How about coins that look like pennies but are made of a biodegradable starch compound?"

"Wouldn't that be expensive to make?"

"Do you think your mom's making meatloaf tonight?"

Mickey threw him a curious sidelong glance and carefully stepped off the curb onto the parking lot pavement. "That's what you want for dinner?"

"If it's no trouble." He picked up speed and got to the station wagon first, opening the doors ahead of Mickey. "I want to hear what she thinks about biodegradable starch coins. I have a theory that on four out of five random topics, your mother will agree with me over you."

Mickey stopped at the passenger door and looked at Austin in open-mouthed surprise. "You're crazy. My mother and I are very close. You've only met her two or three times. I'm not even sure she likes you."

Austin motioned her to pass the crutches to him inside the car, and he carefully deposited them into the back seat. "She likes me," he insisted, straightening up from bending over the headrest. He sat down behind the wheel. "Ready?" He started up the ignition and waited while Mickey settled in. "I've got a dollar that says she'll agree with me on the starch coins."

"Forget the dollar. Control over the music in the warehouse tomorrow says you're wrong." Her eyes were trained steadily ahead of her, and her face wore a smug grin.

He stopped short of putting the car in gear to furrow his brow at her. "All day tomorrow?"

"Let's go, Austin."

* * *

The End.


End file.
